Fridays, 1-2 pm EST, January 5 - February 9

online, 20 students max

In this generative class we will explore storytelling with an emphasis on playfulness, improvisation, and creativity by doing in-class writing prompts. Some of these exercises include writing in response to a painting or photograph, making up histories for discarded objects, and writing new endings to old stories. You can write in any genre you’d like, whether fiction, non-fiction, poetry, hybrid forms that combine image and text, or anything else you can think of. This class is about inspiring you to write. It’s just one hour a week. There will be no homework, outside reading, or critical workshopping. I believe writing is a serious form of play, and this is also my approach to teaching. The goal is to be open, experimental, and to just have fun!

About the instructor

Omer Friedlander is the author of the short story collection The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land, winner of the Association of Jewish Libraries Fiction Award and a finalist for the Wingate Prize. The book was chosen as an American Library Association Sophie Brody Medal Honor Book for outstanding achievement in Jewish Literature and longlisted for the Story Prize. Omer has a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge and an MFA from Boston University, where he was supported by the Saul Bellow Fellowship. He was a Starworks Fellow in Fiction at New York University. His collection has been translated into several languages, including Turkish, Dutch, and Italian. His writing has been supported by the Bread Loaf Fellowship and Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. He currently lives in New York City and teaches creative writing at Columbia University.

Seriously Playful Writing with Omer Friedlander