The Muse & The Marketplace 2020

This craft class will start with a very brief overview of minimalist and maximalist approaches, with a focus on how writers have used them to achieve emotional impact in their work. We will then look at a few texts by Susan Sontag, Wayne Corbitt, and Rebecca Makkai -- writers who are dealing with similar material in very different ways to great effect. If we have time, we'll also look at two works by Octavia Butler and Timothy Donnelly. Throughout the class, you might be self-diagnosing yourself as a minimalist or a maximalist and clinging to that artistic identity, but -- spoiler alert! -- one main point here is that you don't have to choose.