Advanced Short Fiction

with Akhil Sharma

This course will develop writers’ understanding of the short story, its forms, structures and techniques. Writers will gain a deeper knowledge of how to write short stories and gain skills and experience to write and revise their short stories.

Unfortunately, we are full!

Registrations for this course are now closed but do join our mailing list here to be updated on future courses like this.

Summary

Course code: AS2

6 weekly workshops

For Intermediate to Advanced Writers

Limited places available

Selective entry – we’ll offer places to writers based on writing samples sent on application

 

Dates

6 sessions on:

  •  24 September 2022 (Saturday)
  •  1 October 2022 (Saturday)
  •  8 October 2022 (Saturday)
  •  15 October 2022 (Saturday)
  •  22 October 2022 (Saturday)
  •  29 October 2022 (Saturday)

2:00 to 5:00pm SGT

No partial sessions accepted

Venue

NTU@one-north
11 Slim Barracks Rise
Singapore 138664

Overview and Learning Outcomes

This course will develop writers’ understanding of the short story, its forms, structures and techniques. Writers will gain a deeper knowledge of how to write short stories and gain skills and experience to write and revise their short stories. 

The purpose of the course is to take one or two of the best short stories each student has written (depending on how many students are in the course) and use them as opportunities to see what technical skills still need to be developed.

  • Focus on what exactly is worth writing about: the interior life or the social world and in what proportions.
  • Advanced techniques & approaches to writing compelling short stories.
  • Readings of classic short stories.
  • Exercises leading to creation of a short story.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will:

  1. develop their understanding of the short story, its forms, structures and techniques
  2. gain a deeper knowledge of how to write short stories
  3. obtain skills and experience to enable participants to write new and revise existing short stories

Who should register?

Writers including:

  1. Intermediate Writers — Writers who have chosen to pursue writing as a full time or part time career with a serious, professional intent but who are not yet published with a mainstream or recognised independent publisher
  2. Advanced Writers — Writers who have published at least one book with a mainstream or recognised independent publisher, and/or published in at least one literary journal and/or anthology

This course is especially targetted at short story writers looking to take their stories to the next level.

Participants will be selected by the Visiting Writer with assistance from the Asia Creative Writing programme. A waiting list will be maintained.

Registration and Pricing

Course Prerequisites

To sign up, please register at the link above with the following documents:

  1. A 500 word writing sample
  2. A short summary of your writing project of ~100 words
  3. A short biography of ~100 words

Course Fees

  • For 6 workshops:
    • $180 for adults
    • $60 for students, unemployed, low income migrant workers
  • Free for undergraduates from Singapore tertiary institutions
  • Non refundable if cancellation 2 weeks or less before course starts
  • Please email us if financial assistance is needed

About Akhil Sharma

Akhil Sharma was born in Delhi in India and emigrated to the USA in 1979. His stories have been published in the New Yorker and in Atlantic Monthly, and have been included in The Best American Short Stories and O. Henry Prize Collections. His first novel, An Obedient Father, won the 2001 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. He was named one of Granta’s ‘Best of Young American Novelists’ in 2007. His second novel, Family Life, won The 2015 Folio Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award 2016. Sharma is currently a Fellow at The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

© Photo credit: Jack Lewellyn

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