CRW 4120 Fall 2018 Butler

The advanced undergraduate fiction workshop under Robert Olen Butler will focus intensively on the essentials of process in creating literary narrative. Given the most elusive and crucial of these essentials, the workshop will propose an aesthetic theory of the short short story, both as a distinct art form and as an image of the first pages of any work of viable fiction regardless of length, and students will write primarily short short stories or the opening equivalent of a longer work. Though for most of the semester the writing will be done in the “literary genre,” Butler will spend the final few weeks working with students in whatever other fiction genre (mystery, fantasy, sci-fi etc.) that interests them.

To apply, send Professor Butler a brief statement of your goals as a writer and the OPENING 500 words of what you feel is your best piece of fiction.