Graduate Liberal Studies

Wesleyan University
Middletown, CT 06459
860-685-2900

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HUMS629

Voice and Style: Exercises for Writers

Anne Greene

January 25, 2016 - May 6, 2016
Mondays, 6:30-9:00pm
Location: Downey 100

Information subject to change; syllabi and book lists are provided for general reference only. Enrollment is limited to 18 students. This course is not open to auditors. 

Course Syllabus   Click here to return to courses

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Course Overview

This course offers practice in a range of prose styles, drawn from works of both fiction and nonfiction, and invites students to try short or long pieces that suit their own interests. We focus on helping each writer develop a distinctive voice. No previous writing experience is required. 

Readings are drawn from writers whose voice and phrasing are memorable. The syllabus will include essays, journalism, memoir, short stories, and novels, among them works by Gertrude Stein, Ha Jin, Robert Stone, Annie Dillard, and Jamaica Kincaid. 

The assignments are tremendously flexible. Works by previous students in the course range from award-winning short stories to personal essays, journalistic pieces, food blogs, family history, memoirs, biographical sketches, sports writing, medical articles, reflections about teaching, and chapters of novels.

  • Faculty Bio
    Anne Greene (B.A. Radcliffe College, M.A. Brandeis University) has recently been appointed University Professor in the Department of English, in recognition of her excellence in teaching. In 2006 she received the university's Binswanger Teaching Prize. She offers writing courses for the English Department and GLSP and serves as director of the university's writing certificate program and the Wesleyan Writers Conference. Her former students' work has been widely published and has appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Travel Writing.