More Reading Options

From The Red Weather Reading Series: 

Greetings, earthlings. This spring, let the screen door bang and stay up late attending to the big picture with the Red Weather Reading Series. Caress, buff-out and paint over the local rust and look to the midnight stars with an April duet of great writers:

Firstly, on Tuesday, April 10, Zoe Brigley Thompson will make you a better human being with her poetry in108 Chambers at 7:35 p.m.

Zoë Brigley Thompson's first poetry collection, The Secret, was published in 2007 by Bloodaxe. It was an UK Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was long-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize for international writers under the age of 30. For her poetry, Zoë has won a translation fellowship with the University of East Anglia (2001), an Eric Gregory Award (2003), a Welsh Academy Bursary (2005) and the English Association Fellows' Poetry Prize (2006). She has been shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize (2008) and the Arvon International Poetry Competition (2010). Her new collection of Poems, Conquest, is due out this spring.

Zoë is also an early career scholar, whose most recent project was editing the Routledge volume, Feminism, Literature and Rape Narratives (2010). She has published in journals like Orbis Litterarum, The International Journal of Women’s Studies and Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies.  Her research focuses on transnational feminist approaches to literature, film and art. She writes a blog The Midnight Heart. 

Find an internet representation of Zoe and her work at http://redroom.com/member/zoe-brigley-thompson

Also firstly, on Wednesday, April 18th, Matthew Kirkpatrick will wine-and-dine your sagging souls with his fiction-style storytelling in 111 Chambers at 7:35 p.m. 

Matthew Kirkpatrick is the author of Light without Heat (FC2, 2012). His fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, the Notre Dame Review, Unsaid, and elsewhere. A native of Altoona, PA, he's proud to have called State College, PA home while attending Penn State as an undergraduate. He recently finished his Ph.D. at the University of Utah, and in the fall will be an Assistant Professor at North Central College in Naperville, IL.

Find an internet representation of Matthew Kirkpatrick and his work at http://www.mattkirkpatrick.com/w/

Please join us in celebrating the artistic use of free-range words on the Penn State UP campus this April. 

 

Blog Entry 12: Playing God

You've all been asked to create a main character for your short story assignment. Now, I want you to take them out of the story you are creating your for your final fiction piece and put them into a piece of flash fiction--where they die. 

Here's the reasoning: People learn a lot about themselves in extreme situations and there's no situation quite as extreme as death. Have your main character confront death in a way that suits their life. Be true to the person you've created. And then, kill them off. This exercise is meant to help you to get to know your main character better by pushing that character to the extreme.

Write at least 500 words. And remember: it's time to kill your new best friend.


Due by class on Thursday, April 5

Blog Entry 11: Flash Fiction

Here's your prompt: "Some habits are hard to break."

The goal for this writing exercise is to write a COMPLETE story in 500 words or less. Do not submit the beginning of a story or anything that isn't complete. Refer to the short shorts in the Starkey book as well as some of the flash fiction posted on Nano Fiction (see the link below).

Due by class Thursday, March 29. 

Another Poetry Reading Option

To get you started: Short (and Short-Short) Fiction Links

Writers Digest Prompts to help you get started

Great flash fiction over at Nano Fiction, where one of my favorite short-shorts, "Apology + Opportunity" by Gabe Durham, is published.

Aimee Bender's monthly writing exercises.

Lots of excellent short stories and flash fiction over at Word Riot.

TONS of Creative Writing Prompts. 346 To be exact.

A tumblr dedicated to writing prompts.

Blog Entry Ten: Short-Short Fiction

Here's your prompt:


You receive a phone call from your two best friends. 'Hey, we’ve done something terribly wrong and need your help. We can’t talk about it over the phone. Please meet us at the spot where we made our pact back in high school. You know the place.' Nervously, you grab your coat and car keys.


Write at least 500 words. 


Due by class, Thursday, March 22

Kurt Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories