Peter N LaSalle

Instructor:  La Salle, P            Areas:  IV / U

Unique #:  83525            Flags:  Writing

Semester:  Summer 2013, first session            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: C L 315, E 603B, 316K, or T C 603B.

Description: The beginning of the course will stress the development of skills in the various aspects of narration, including writing description, probing character, and plotting. The latter part of the course will involve the writing and rewriting of a complete short story.

Texts: The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Cassill, ed.

Requirements & Grading: Four writing assignments: 90%; Attendance and participation: 10%.

Instructor:  La Salle, P            Areas:  IV / U

Unique #:  35545            Flags:  n/a

Semester:  Spring 2013            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: English 341 or 341L.

Description: This is a course for advanced students in poetry writing and fiction writing.

There will be three dates on which work is due, and on each the student will turn in either a complete short story or a group of several (five or so) poems. A student will concentrate on either poetry or fiction, though on one of the due dates work in the other genre will be turned in. For example, a poet will do two of the assignments in poetry and one in fiction.

Student work will be examined in class with workshop discussion. There will also be reading from three texts, as well as discussion of some larger ideas in theory of writing, especially how the two genres--fiction and poetry--feed each other.

Texts: A Fine Excess, editors Gann and Herbert (an anthology of contemporary poetry and fiction); 
Jorge Luis Borges, Dreamtigers, (fiction and poetry).

Requirements &Grading: Writing assignments 90%; 
Attendance and participation 10%.

Instructor:  La Salle, P            Areas:  IV / U

Unique #:  35330 & 35335            Flags:  Writing

Semester:  Fall 2012            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

E 325 (Topic 1: Creative Writing: Fiction) and 325F may not both be counted.

Prerequisites: C L 315, E 603B, 316K, or T C 603B.

Description: The beginning of the course will stress the development of skills in the various aspects of narration, including writing description, probing character, and plotting. The latter part of the course will involve the writing and rewriting of a complete short story.

Texts: The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Cassill, ed.

Requirements & Grading: Four writing assignments: 90%; Attendance and participation: 10%.

Instructor:  La Salle, P            Areas:  IV / U

Unique #:  35330 & 35335            Flags:  Writing

Semester:  Fall 2012            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

E 325 (Topic 1: Creative Writing: Fiction) and 325F may not both be counted.

Prerequisites: C L 315, E 603B, 316K, or T C 603B.

Description: The beginning of the course will stress the development of skills in the various aspects of narration, including writing description, probing character, and plotting. The latter part of the course will involve the writing and rewriting of a complete short story.

Texts: The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Cassill, ed.

Requirements & Grading: Four writing assignments: 90%; Attendance and participation: 10%.

Instructor:  La Salle, P            Areas:  IV / U

Unique #:  83635            Flags:  Writing

Semester:  Summer 2012, first session            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

E 325 (Topic 1: Creative Writing: Fiction) and 325F may not both be counted.

Prerequisites: C L 315, E 603B, 316K, or T C 603B.

Description: The beginning of the course will stress the development of skills in the various aspects of narration, including writing description, probing character, and plotting. The latter part of the course will involve the writing and rewriting of a complete short story.

Texts: The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Cassill, ed.

Requirements & Grading: Four writing assignments: 90%; Attendance and participation: 10%.

Instructor:  La Salle, P            Areas:  IV / U

Unique #:  35360            Flags:  n/a

Semester:  Spring 2012            Restrictions:  n/a

Cross-lists:  n/a            Computer Instruction:  No

Prerequisites: English 341 or 341L.

Description: This is a course for advanced students in poetry writing and fiction writing.

There will be three dates on which work is due, and on each the student will turn in either a complete short story or a group of several (five or so) poems. A student will concentrate on either poetry or fiction, though on one of the due dates work in the other genre will be turned in. For example, a poet will do two of the assignments in poetry and one in fiction. 

Student work will be examined in class with workshop discussion. There will also be reading from three texts, as well as discussion of some larger ideas in theory of writing, especially how the two genres--fiction and poetry--feed each other.

Texts: A Fine Excess, editors Gann and Herbert (an anthology of contemporary poetry and fiction); 
Jorge Luis Borges, Dreamtigers, (fiction and poetry).

Requirements &Grading: Writing assignments 90%; 
Attendance and participation 10%.

Graduate Fiction Writing Workshop

Instructor: Peter LaSalle

Course Description:

This is a fiction workshop for graduate creative writing students, those in either the English Department program or the MCW program.

Writing will be turned in on three due dates spaced throughout the semester. The work for each date may be either a complete short story or an installment from a longer project (novel or novella), and the student will write a total of about forty pages of fiction. There will be discussion in class of the student writing.

There will also be reading from:

(1) A Fine Excess, eds Gann and Herbert, an anthology built around the ideas in William Gass's essay "The Music of Prose" concerning richness of language in fiction; the book includes mostly contemporary American writing.

(2) Magical Realist Fiction, eds Young and Holloman, an anthology of innovative fiction (the title is somewhat misleading, and actually much of the work isn't what usually would be considered "magical realism"), with stories by Faulkner, Woolf, Borges, Barthelme, Cheever, Bishop, Bombal, and García Márquez.

(3) An issue of a good literary magazine to be named (such as Agni, Tin House, or Antioch Review), for the class to examine together its contents; this should generate some discussion of literary magazines in general and how one goes about dealing with them (manuscript preparation, submission, etc.).

E 325 (Topic 1: Creative Writing: Fiction) and 325F may not both be counted.

Prerequisites: C L 315, E 603B, 316K, or T C 603B.

Description: The beginning of the course will stress the development of skills in the various aspects of narration, including writing description, probing character, and plotting. The latter part of the course will involve the writing and rewriting of a complete short story. 

Texts: The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Cassill, ed.

Requirements & Grading: Four writing assignments: 90%; Attendance and participation: 10%.

Prerequisites: Comparative Literature 315, English 603B, 316K, or Tutorial Course 603B.

Description: This is a beginning course in poetry writing. In the first half of the course there will be discussion of poetic theory as well as writing practice in several poetic forms, including prose poem, haiku, sonnet, and free verse. The second half of the course will essentially involve the student writing and revising about 15-20 pages of original poetry (with work submitted in two installments) and the workshop discussion of that poetry in class. There are two required texts, and the class will also read an issue of a literary magazine to be named, which should prompt some consideration of literary magazines in general and the cause of poetry they serve in America today.

Texts: The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, J.D. McClatchy, editor; an anthology of poetry.

The Weather of Words, Mark Strand; essays on poetry.

An issue of a literary magazine to be named (such as Agni Magazine, Antioch Review or New England Review).

Requirements & Grading: Writing Assignments: 90%; Attendance and participation: 10%.

E 325 (Topic 1: Creative Writing: Fiction) and 325F may not both be counted.

Prerequisites: C L 315, E 603B, 316K, or T C 603B.

Course Description: The beginning of the course will stress the development of skills in the various aspects of narration, including writing description, probing character, and plotting. The latter part of the course will involve the writing and rewriting of a complete short story.

Texts: The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Cassill, ed.

Grading: Four writing assignments: 90%; Attendance and participation: 10%.

Prerequisites: English 341 or 341L.

Course Description: This is a course for advanced students in poetry writing and fiction writing.

There will be three dates on which work is due, and on each the student will turn in either a complete short story or a group of several (five or so) poems. A student will concentrate on either poetry or fiction, though on one of the due dates work in the other genre will be turned in. For example, a poet will do two of the assignments in poetry and on in fiction.

Student work will be examined in class with workshop discussion. There will also be reading from three texts, as well as discussion of some larger ideas in theory of writing, especially how the two genres--fiction and poetry--feed each other.

Texts: A Fine Excess, editors Gann and Herberty (an anthology of contemporary poetry and fiction); 
Jorge Luis Borges, Dreamtigers, (fiction and poetry).

Grading: Writing assignments 90%; 
Attendance and participation 10%.

E 325 (Topic 1: Creative Writing: Fiction) and 325F may not both be counted.

Course Description: The beginning of the course will stress the development of skills in the various aspects of narration, including writing description, probing character, and plotting. The latter part of the course will involve the writing and rewriting of a complete short story.

Texts: The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Cassill, ed.

Grading: Four writing assignments: 90%; Attendance and participation: 10%.

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

This is a course for graduate creative writing students, MA or MFA. It will examine the metaphysical element in a selection of modern and contemporary literature (prose, poetry, and drama) as well as in some painting. For our purposes, the metaphysical element will basically mean the creative imagination exploring, questioning, and ultimately—and very daringly—going beyond standard assumptions about time and space, dream and reality, etc., as perhaps true knowledge begins. The works themselves may be seen as the "messages" of the course's title.

The Reading:

I. Symbolism, Decadentism, Surrealism, etc.
    The Flowers of Evil, poems, Charles Baudelaire
    Nadja, a novel, André Breton
    Nightwood, a novel, Djuna Barnes

II. Borges and Bombal: The Buenos Aires Connection
     Labyrinths, stories and essays, Jorge Luis Borges
     New Islands, stories, María Luisa Bombal   

III. An Interlude with Painters
      Gustave Moreau, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Odilon Redon, Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Delvaux,           
           and René Magritte (paintings viewed on Web sites)

IV. Contemporary Messages
      Transparent Things, a novel, Vladimir Nabokov
      Collected Shorter Plays, Samuel Beckett
      The Lime Twig, a novel, John Hawkes
      Selected Poems, Mark Strand
      Best American Fantasy 2007, edited by Anne and Jeff VanderMeer, stories by Elizabeth Hand,    
           Kelly Link, Ramola D., Daniel Alarcón, and others. This anthology casts a pretty wide net in its   
           definition of "fantasy," to include much postmodern experiment and also what often falls under  
           labels such as "The New Weird."

Requirements:

Students will present weekly responses to the reading in class and will write two papers.

The first paper will be a personal essay on thinking about the metaphysical element in relation to the student's own creative writing. In the second paper, longer, the student will select a writer whose work seems metaphysical and examine that work according to ideas developed in the course, for the sort of engaging and even stylistically innovative essay about literature written by a creative writer and found in a literary magazine (rather than commentary that is simply functional, as maybe done for a research/analytical article in an academic journal).

Course Description: This is a first-level course in the writing of fiction. The beginning of the course will stress the development of skills in the various aspects of narration, including writing description, probing character, and plotting. The latter part of the course will involve the writing and rewriting of a complete short story.

Texts: The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Cassill, ed.

Grading: Four writing assignments: 90%; Attendance and participation: 10%.

Prerequisites: Nine semester hours of coursework in English or rhetoric and writing.

English 325    Creative Writing: Fiction

Instructor: Peter LaSalle, Spring 2010

The student will be responsible for about 30 pages of original writing. There are four due dates.

            The Dates:

                                    Thursday January 28--Description
                                    Thursday February 11--Character/Dialogue
                                    Tuesday  March 9--Plot
                                    Tuesday April 27--Final Story

All work should be a final draft, typed and with pages numbered; no need for a separate title page; use staple or paper clip to attach pages.

The beginning of the course will stress the development of skills in the various aspects of narration, including writing description, probing character, and plotting. The latter part of the course will involve the writing and rewriting of a complete short story. There will be reading from a text.

            The Text:

                        The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Bausch and Cassill, editors.

For more information, please download the full syllabus.

ENGLISH 355 K: Advanced Creative Writing

University of Texas, Spring 2010
Instructor: Peter LaSalle

This is a course for advanced students in fiction writing and poetry writing.

There will be three dates on which work is due, and on each the student will turn in either a complete short story or a group of several (five or so) poems. A student will concentrate on either poetry or fiction, though on one of the due dates work in the other genre will be turned in. For example, a poet will do two of the assignments in poetry and one in fiction.

            The dates:

                        Thursday, January 28
                        Thursday, February 25
                        Tuesday, April 13

Student work will be examined in class with workshop discussion. There will also be reading from two texts, as well as discussion of some larger ideas concerning theory of writing, especially how the two genres—fiction and poetry—influence each other.

            The texts:

                        1. A Fine Excess, editors Gann and Herbert
                                    (an anthology of contemporary poetry and fiction)
                        2. Dreamtigers, Jorge Luis Borges
                                    (fiction and poetry)

For more information, please download the full syllabus.