Summer 2027 Course Atlas

SUMMER SESSION 2

Dr. Victoria Kornick       

Tues/Thurs 6:30 - 8:00pm, online

Pre-requisite: None

In this class, students will develop their craft as fiction writers, considering how to tell compelling, memorable stories, and why storytelling matters. How can fiction reflect and illuminate our lived experiences? How might it imagine alternate ones? Why do we write, and what can our writing offer to others?

To answer these questions, we’ll read fiction by a range of contemporary authors and respond to it as writers—that is, we’ll think critically about why we reacted to it as we did, what we can take from it ourselves, where it inspired or failed us, and how it worked.

We will explore the possibilities of fiction craft, including plot, structure, narrative tension, conflict, scene, setting, characterization, and dialogue. Students will write often, writing four new pieces (two flash fiction, two more developed stories) in response to prompts. At the end of the semester, students will turn in a final portfolio consisting of a reflective statement and expanded, significantly revised versions of at least two of these pieces.

Texts:

The Making of a Story: A Norton Guide to Creative Writing by Alice LaPlante    

The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story edited by John Freeman     

The Best American Short Stories 2025 edited by Celeste Ng     

Required materials:

• Computer (not phone!) with a strong internet connection
• Google Docs and/or Microsoft Word
• Pen/pencil and a notebook to write in

Phone/digital camera/scanner to take an image of your handwritten pre-writing.

Assessment and feedback:

• Participation & Preparedness (35%): The quality (not frequency) of verbal communication, engagement and preparedness in craft discussions of readings and workshop, attendance, and written feedback to one another factor into this grade.

• Workshop Submissions (20%): Each student will bring in two fully developed submissions (5-10 double-spaced pages) for workshop this semester. These pieces will be based on prompts, and should stand alone as short stories, though they may be linked.

Workshop submission evaluation is based on (1) meeting page and prompt requirements, (2) how well the work engages with the elements of fiction we’ve discussed in class, and (3) whether students’ own craft as a writer is developing based on feedback.

• Flash Fiction Submissions (10%): On the two weeks their group is not being workshopped, students will write a very short piece of fiction (2-3 double-spaced pages, between 600-900 words) in response to the same prompt.

• Final Portfolio (25%): At the end of the semester, students will turn in a final portfolio of 15-25 pages, with a total of at least two pieces in it. These pieces should be significantly revised based on feedback and the student’s own sense of how the work should evolve.

• Final Portfolio Craft Statement and Process Note (10%): Alongside the revisions, students will also turn in a 1-2 page, single-spaced reflective statement about their fiction. At the end of this creative statement, students will include a brief note (one paragraph) about the revision process.
  
  

This is an online course. Emory College Online summer courses have required synchronous/live sessions every week. Students must be available to sign into and virtually attend the course online during those times (noted as the course meeting times- all times listed are local to Atlanta). Each course will also involve significant asynchronous material that you access on your own time in addition to standard amounts of readings and course assignments. Students should plan to spend 15-20 hours/week on this course. Please also be aware that faculty will begin corresponding with students during Week Zero of the course (one week before the official start date of the course), and that some interaction with the course may be required at that time. Students should begin checking the Canvas course site regularly one week prior to the official start of the term.