Thread by @mdbell79

Just finished my syllabus for my spring MFA class on style, the sentence, and acoustics, where we’ll be reading excerpts from all of these books, plus a few others whose copies are in my campus office. I can’t wait to dig in.

Missing from the photo: Ursula K. Le Guin, Blake Butler, Christine Schutt, Renata Adler, Susan Steinberg, Peter Markus, Zadie Smith, Bryan Washington, Edouard Leve, Denis Johnson, and Dylan Landis.

Enough people are asking for the whole syllabus, so I'll post the specific readings. The order might change, and I may still make tweaks, but for now this is the plan:

Craft Texts:
Reading Style by Jenny Davidson
Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style by Virginia Tufte

1/

Fiction Readings:
George Saunders, “Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz”
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, “The Finkelstein Five”
Aimee Bender, "End of the Line"
Colson Whitehead, “The Nickel Boys” (excerpt)
Don DeLillo, "Point Omega" (excerpt)
Lauren Groff, “Ghosts and Empties"

2/

Sam Lipsyte, "I'm Slavering"
Ben Marcus, “The Weather Killer”
Christine Schutt, “You Drive”
Mary Gaitskill, "Tiny Smiling Daddy"
Nafissa Thompson-Spires, "Heads of the Colored People: Four Fancy Sketches, Two Chalk Outlines, and No Apology"
Deb Olin Unferth, "Pet"

3/

Tommy Orange, “There There” (excerpt)
John Edgar Wideman, “Williamsburg Bridge”
Yuri Herrera, “Signs Preceding the End of the World” (excerpt)
Karen Russell, “Bog Girl: A Romance”
Carmen Maria Machado, "The Husband Stitch"
Blake Butler, “The Gown from Mother’s Stomach”

4/

Renata Adler, “Speedboat”
Edouard Leve, “When I Look at a Strawberry, I Think of a Tongue”
J.M. Ledgard, “Submergence” (excerpt)
Denis Johnson, "Work"
Dylan Landis, “Jazz”
Diane Williams, "All American," "Vicky Swanky was a Beauty," "Lady," "Naaa"

5/

Garth Greenwell, "What Belongs to You" (excerpt)
Zadie Smith, “Two Men Arrive in a Village"
Amelia Gray, “These Are the Fables”
David Ohle, “Motorman” (excerpt)
Stanley Crawford, “Log of the S.S. Mrs. Unguentine” (excerpt)
Sabrina Orah Mark, "For the Safety of our Country"

6/

Laura van den Berg, "Hill of Hell"
R.O. Kwon, "The Incendiaries" (excerpt)
Susan Steinberg, “Supernova”
Jeff Vandermeer, "Annihilation" (excerpt)
Marlon James, "Black Leopard, Red Wolf" (excerpt)
Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild”
Louise Erdrich, “The Flower”

7/

Bryan Washington, "Lot"
Peter Markus, "The Gown With Girl Not in It"
Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
Yiyun Li, "A Man Like Him"
Amber Sparks, "A Place for Hiding Precious Things"

8/8