Creative Creative Writing Workshops in Poetry, Fiction, Essay, Playwriting, and Screenwriting
Introductory Workshop
These separate semester-long courses provide a thorough introduction to the process of writing for the selected genre. Students study a wide range of literature, with a goal of understanding the varieties and challenges of written art. Through presentation of new work for group critique, students develop skills in writing, critical reading, and the habit of revision. These literature-based courses emphasize class discussion and individual writing experiments. Major assignments include a minimum of two stories per semester and six poems, depending on the genre studied. Non-majors need the department chair’s permission to participate in workshops.
Advanced Workshop
These separate advanced workshops offer semester-long continuing study of the process of writing in the selected genre. In addition to presenting new work for group critique, students translate, with faculty assistance, works from other languages for translation workshop sessions. At the end of the advanced course, through a curriculum of writing exercises, revisions, readings, and interaction with visiting writers, each student has an extensive portfolio of revised work. Completion of the introductory workshop or department chair permission is required for this course.
Honors Workshop
These separate workshops are designed for those students of selected genre who have displayed a high degree of self-discipline and motivation in writing, critical reading, and the habit of revision. These literature-based courses emphasize class discussion and individual writing experiments.
Literature and the Writer
All courses in this category focus on particular aspects of the concepts and practice of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, playwriting, screenwriting, or other forms of imaginative writing. Critical thinking and the observation of technique are examined in the classes offered under this description. Through lecture and class discussion, students trace the development, similarities and differences of major works of poetry and/or fiction from specific movements, genres, or eras, with an emphasis on the writer's process and the influences on those processes. Courses under consideration include surveys of Russian, German, Latin American, French, or Japanese literature; seminars on Modernism, Impressionism, or Surrealism; Southern Writing; Science Fiction, Sports Literature; Literature and War; Literature and the Environment; Writing from the Civil Rights Struggle; and cross-disciplinary explorations. Writing exercises are derived from the readings, and students are provided with the studio time to develop responses to the imaginative challenges posed by the readings and class discussion. These exercises may be used for workshop submissions.
Author Seminars
An author seminar is structured similarly to the Literature and the Writer course outlined above, but it examines a single author's work in chronological order. For example, if Virginia Woolf is the selected author, her works—novels, essays, and personal correspondence—are discussed in a linear manner starting from her first known work through her last. Authors with a large body of work are covered over the course of an entire semester; those with a lesser volume of work are covered in a quarter. This course is designed to show how an author’s style and technique develop over the course of his or her writing career. Authors likely to be studied in this manner are Italo Calvino, Vladimir Nabokov, Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, John Milton, Philip K. Dick, Franz Kafka, Jane Austen, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Toni Morrison, and others. In 2006 the seminars focused on Anton Chekhov and American Crime Fiction from the 30s, 40s, and 50s.
Writing for T.V. and Film
Classes under this description offer students a broad background on the history and development of film and television as artistic media through the study of cinematic language and technique, art and philosophical movements, narrative construction, and screenwriting. The students develop their ideas and opinions through short written critical analyses. Representative classes include Film Analysis, Novel into Film, Film History, and Film Noir.
Creative Writing Independent Study
Students may undertake independent study projects in areas
not covered by the established writing curriculum. Independent
study, however, may not be sought as an alternative to
or a method of avoiding courses included in the curriculum.
A written proposal for any independent study must be presented
at the beginning of the semester during which the project
is to be completed and must be approved by the department
chair. An approved copy of the proposal must be
submitted by the department chair to the Dean of the Arts
to be placed in the student's permanent file. Credit
for independent study will be determined by the department
chair and the Dean of the Arts.
Creative Writing Tutorial
For the duration of a tutorial, students undertake a major project such as a collection of poems, a collection of short stories, a full-length play, a feature screenplay, or a novel. Bi-weekly meetings encourage students to meet short-term writing goals in service of the larger work. Students are encouraged to develop daily writing habits and a professional attitude towards literary creation. Other readings and exercises may be assigned as part of the tutorial. Students are graded weekly on the basis of mutually agreed criteria.
Coffee House Readings
Creative Writing students are required to read selections from their works during informal readings that occur throughout the year.
Senior Requirements
Seniors undertake three major projects in addition to regular coursework: 1) a critical paper responding to the major works of a selected author, 2) an oral examination over a list of selected novels, 3) presentation of a formal portfolio of creative work of “publishable” quality.
Community of Writers
Because Idyllwild is located between Los Angeles and San Diego, there are many opportunities for students to experience a wide range of literary influences first hand. Trips are organized to reinforce the topics and genres that the students are currently studying. Past field trips have included visits to the Huntington Library, South Coast Repertory, San Diego State University, University of California at San Diego, and the Lannan Foundation's "Readings and Conversations" series at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles.
The Academy's Creative Writing program is a member of the Associated Writing Programs (AWP), and the Creative Writing students have access to all of the membership benefits. The students receive five newsletters per year as part of our department's enrollment in this national nonprofit organization. These newsletters contain interviews with established writers, contest and workshop announcements, calls for manuscripts, and feature articles on the writing process.
Publications
The Creative Writing students edit and publish the Academy's art and literary journal entitled Parallax. The students solicit material from the entire student body (including written and visual arts), select the most suitable submissions for acceptance, set the order of the selected writings and artworks to provide a thematic base, and present the finished magazine to the school community during a publication reading. All authors are encouraged to read their contributions at this time. Enrollment in the Creative Writing program does not guarantee publication in Parallax. The selection of manuscripts is based on quality, thematic connectivity, and appropriateness to the issue in production.
Master Classes for 2007-2008
James Hoch (poet, Miscreants, W.W. Norton 2007, professor at Ramapo College)
Timothy Solon Woodward (novelist, Cadillac Orpheus, Simon & Schuster, 2008)
Beena Kamlani(fiction writer and editor, New York)
G.C. Waldrep (poet, Goldbeater’s Skin, professor at Bucknell College)
Cecily Parks (poet, Cold Work, winner of Poetry Society of American New York Chapbook Fellowship
Jennifer Chang (poet, collection forthcoming from University of Georgia Press, 2008)
