People have been asking me what I am teaching next year–here are the course descriptions. These are slightly different than what was posted in the actual calendar. Over the next year or two themes of discussion will include Literary Identities, how we see ourselves and our relationships to institutions and communities. Strategies of creative resistances and critical transformations

ENGLISH 342/3/BB: Advanced Fiction Workshop (2019-20)
Instructor: Sina Queyras
Thursday: 18.00-20.15
There is no one approach to writing prose, but there are elements that make for great work. In this course we will encounter a wide range of practices within the genre—from the most classical to the most experimental. Each week we will read, discuss, and write about new texts and student work, identifying key, successful elements. Our investigations will create a common critical vocabulary and form the basis of our workshop. As well as presenting work in class, students will produce a portfolio that includes a selection of prose work as well as ongoing creative and critical work that contextualizes their practice. Writers we read will include, but are not limited to: Ottessa Moshfheg, Amy Hemple, Sheila Heti, Nicole Brossard, Juliana Spahr, David Chariandy, Shani Mootoo, Larissa Lai, Sally Rooney, Thomas King, Eden Robinson.

ENGL 348/3/B Creative Writing: Advanced Poetry Workshop (2019-2020)
Instructor: Sina Queyras
Wednesday 14.45-17.30
Students of this advanced poetry workshop will be required to produce writing on a weekly basis. We will spend the bulk of our time reading and discussing student generated work. Students will develop tools for a sustainable creative practice, engage in writing experiments and learn to present our work in print and performance. The first semester will focus on experiments and creative play and the second semester will be spent working on an extended project. Poets will be required to attend literary events over the year, and to take part in discussions and actions that query what it means to be a literary person and how to create literary worlds. Reading list will include essays and poetry from Juliana Spahr, Dionne Brand, AE Stallings, Alice Notley, Claudia Rankine, Margaret Christakos, Sue Goyette, Anne Carson, Kaveh Akbar, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Ocean Vuong, Terrance Hayes, Jos Charles, a course pack, and several literary journals including The Capilano Review, The London Review of Books, and Poetry magazine.

ENGLISH 672/2/AA: Writing Techniques (Fall, 2019)
Instructor: Sina Queyras
Tuesday: 18.00-20.15
In this graduate workshop we will explore writing techniques that are conventional and unconventional, grounding ourselves in a range of writing styles and approaches to contemporary writing. Emphasis will be placed building a sustainable creative practice with a wide range of skills and techniques rather than the mastery of a specific “genre.” Students will develop strategies for conceiving of projects, modes of generating content, conducting research, thinking through constraints and forms, building scenes, characters, questions of authorial voice and style, and creating the grand vision. They will also query what it means to be an author in a time of radical change and environmental devastation. Authors read and discussed include but are not limited to: Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing, Renee Gladman, Andrea Lawlor, Rachel Cusk, Eileen Myles, Claudia Rankine, Dionne Brand, David Chariandy, Ocean Vuong, Shani Mootoo, Larissa Lai, Sally Rooney, Anne Carson, and Sheila Heti.