Graduate Prose Workshop

Curiosity is the antidote to judgement.

This graduate prose workshop is a place to generate new work, take risks, and question yourself and others about your writing.  As you do so, you should be developing a good sense of your own passions, obsessions, and fears as writers. As part of this process, you will have assignments to help you locate the various literary/artistic traditions in which your writing is situated and to help you figure out how to send that writing out into the world so that it can contribute to and expand those traditions.

In addition to these responsibilities to yourselves, the workshop asks that you be responsible to each other, to help each writer figure out the very best way to accomplish their goals.

You can always find the class schedule (topics and requirements) by clicking on the Syllabus or Assignments link to the left.

Class Meetings

M, 4:00 - 7:50 pm, Thomson Hall 215.  On 10/3, 10/10, 11/7,  & 11/14, I will have a faculty senate meeting . On those days, class will start at 4:30 pm, and we will extend class by an extra half hour if necessary. I will also be sure to build in a break every class for leg-stretching, snacking, etc.

Office Hours

Mondays 11:00 am - 1:00 pm & by appointment, in person or over Zoom, outside if the weather is nice.  Link to the left.

Requirements in Brief

Writing

• Submissions of new fiction or literary nonfiction, totaling about 10,000 - 12,000 words (40 pages). This might be 3 pieces of equal length, one longer piece, or numerous shorter pieces. Second year students, you are welcome to submit work from your creative manuscript/thesis, as long as it is new, has been substantially revised since the last time you workshopped it, OR  no one in this class has read it before.
• Literary-Artistic Family Tree
• Essay on new author/book from one of your traditions, that you might add to your family tree
• Annotated list of at least 20 journals to which you might submit your writing
• Written comments on your peers' writing.

Reading

• Your peers' writing!
• A handful of essays, linked through Canvas
• A book of your choosing in preparation for writing the essay
• Various literary journals in preparation for creating the annotated list

Getting to Know Me

I use she/her pronouns.

I was born and raised in New York City, attended public high school in Manhattan and Wesleyan University in Connecticut before receiving my MFA in creative writing from Brown University. My parents were both visual artists, but I always wanted to be a writer. I focus on short fiction and personal essays, and have been teaching at UW since 1993.

When I'm not writing or reading, reading, reading, I attend movies, plays, and concerts, bake (too much!), and knit. Occasionally, I play video games.

Visit my website Links to an external site. to see what writing I've been up to recently.

Drop by during office hours, or email me (mayas@uw.edu) with questions. I'll get back to you within 24 hours during the week, 48 hours on the weekend.

Optional Work

Getting Started Exercises

I know that the shift to graduate school can be a bit overwhelming for some and that it can sometimes be difficult to generate new work right away. Since I DO want you to submit new work for this class (first year students especially), rather than material that's already been workshopped and vetted, here are a variety of exercises that I hope get the creative juices flowing. I also recommend The 3 A. M. Epiphany and The 4 A. M. Breakthrough, both by Brian Kiteley. They both include dozens and dozens of varied and interesting writing prompts. None of these are required; they are suggestions in case you feel stuck!

Writing from/in Place

Many of you are new to Seattle, while others may have lived here for a year or longer but feel you haven't fully explored the city yet. I encourage you to bring a notebook along as you visit one or more of these places and, as a visual artist might sketch while outdoors, spend some time writing in response to a new place. Again--not required!

Prose Style

As those who took my workshop last winter know, I usually accompany the workshop with teachings related to analyzing and developing prose style. We won't have time this quarter to delve into this with the detail it really requires, but I am absolutely happy to run additional meetings on this topic if any of you are interested. I'll talk more about this on the first day of class. If you decide to do this, there will be a course reader to buy.

List of recommended books related to prose style.