Writing Workshops

Taking Inspiration from The Best American Short Stories with Cora Lewis (July 2025)

$545

8 sessions

Out of stock

Once a week Tuesdays, 6:00 pm EDT - 8:00 pm EDT July 1 to September 2, 2025

The Center for Fiction

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How do they do it? What choices do authors make when crafting a short story to form its particular plot, characters, setting, tone, mood, and ideas? How do dialogue, point of view, pacing, and detail contribute to an overall effect? In this course, we’ll read short stories from the last century—one or two a week—and take inspiration from both contemporary and classic writers. We’ll also spend some time in each class discussing the craft elements and underlying mechanics of these authors’ works to see which tactics make sense for use in our own writing. A portion of each class will be dedicated to responding to generative prompts and exercises, based on that week’s theme.

Course Outline:

Week 1: Plot
Week 2: Character
Week 3: Setting and Symbolism
Week 4: Point of View / Perspective
Week 5: Dialogue and Voice
Week 6: Pacing and Narrative Distance
Week 7: Beginnings and Endings
Week 8: Formal Experimentation

Authors we read may include: Denis Johnson, Kathleen Collins, James Baldwin, Miranda July, ZZ Packer, John Cheever, Lucia Berlin, Susan Sontag, George Saunders, Jamaica Kincaid, Ann Beattie, Tommy Orange, Donald Barthelme, Jhumpa Lahiri, Vladimir Nabokov, Ben Lerner, Weike Wang, Percival Everett, Grace Paley, Jorge Luis Borges, Amy Hempel, Ernest Hemingway, James Salter, Ted Chiang, Octavia Butler, Lorrie Moore, John Keene, Lydia Davis, Renata Adler, Philip Roth, Carmen Maria Machado, and Joy Williams.

Level: Introductory

This course will be held in person at The Center for Fiction. Please note that this course will not meet on July 15th and August 19th.

Led by

Cora Lewis

Cora Lewis

Cora Lewis is the author of the forthcoming novella Information Age, which will be published in July 2025 by Joyland Editions. Her short stories have appeared in the Yale Review, Joyland magazine, Epiphany, the Cleveland Review of Books, Reed magazine, the Cream City Review, and elsewhere. She received her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis and her BA from Yale University.

About this series

Writing Workshops

We strive to make our classes the most inviting and rewarding available, offering an intimate environment to study with award-winning, world-class writers. Each class is specially designed by the instructor, so whether you’re a fledgling writer or an MFA graduate polishing your novel, you’ll find a perfect fit here.

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