Week Five in Review
Our Week 5 instructor, Ruoxi Chen, brought her deep knowledge of markets and vast experience as an in-house acquiring editor to the classroom this week. Among lightning feedback rounds and deep dives into comps and influences, Ruoxi encouraged the class to imagine the markets to which they might eventually send their work. Actively considering the submission process while drafting brought a practical focus to the craft discussion, challenging everyone to consider word counts, presentation (including fake hyperlinks and interactive games), and what elements of genre to emphasize. Despite the lingering impacts of last week’s heatwave, the students upped the ante with their work, introducing and exploring all sorts of fascinating elements from teratomas and mosquito pee to innovative structures and 2024’s first collaboration.
On Thursday, Ruoxi read from her Fantasy Magazine short story, “Fandom for Witches,” at the Ravenna location of Third Place Books and was interviewed by Portland-based editor and Reactor journalist Molly Templeton. Meanwhile, the students closed out the week with mystery muse E. Lily Yu (CW ’13) and a surprise—and utterly adorable—visit from farm friends (a goat and very friendly dog) thanks to Tegan Moore (CW ’15).
This week in the Flash Fiction Groups, Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (CW ’22) discussed using poetry to inform flash fiction, specifically the Volta — a sudden change in tone, mood or a surprise that arrives near the end — and how writers can employ the poet’s attention to compression, sound, and working at the line level.
In the Write-a-thon, we had a blast with our first Science Fiction Movie Watch Party with Curtis Chen (CW ’14) and Kate Ristau, re-watched Ana Hurtado’s (CW ’22) Class on Magical Realism, and learned about Harnessing the Power of Lists in Short Story Writing with Izzy Wasserstein (CW ’17).