Sometimes I’ve have the pleasure of being one of the professional writers teaching a writers’ workshop at a science fiction/fantasy convention. If you aspire to write science fiction, fantasy or horror, this kind of workshop is a good idea for you. Not every writing class or workshop welcomes speculative fiction!
Teaching creative writing through the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies (2001-2019) at Rice University was an incredibly rewarding experience. The participants in my classes taught me so much about writing fiction and creative nonfiction.
In 2016 I created and taught a class I called Publishing Your Story: Pathways and Pitfalls. It addressed the reality that aspiring authors today face a confoundingly complex situation. There are many paths to publication—traditional New York publishing; independent presses and co-ops, some of which keep up with the digital times better than the New York publishers; partner publishing with companies which profit from author services, not book sales; and self-publishing, in which some authors are finding great success. But each of these pathways holds pitfalls for the unwary new writer.
Some of the other classes I designed and taught at the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies are those below.
In Fall 2007 I taught Introduction to Short Story Writing. This was unexpected; the Glasscock School of Continuing Studies needed an instructor when the writer who taught that course in past years took a university teaching position elsewhere. It turned out to be a very rewarding course to teach, with wonderful participants having a whole range of interests in fiction. We covered beginnings; character and point of view; plot and pace; scene and setting; prose, tone and style; and revising. And as is so often the case with teaching any topic whatsoever, I learned as much as my students did.
In Spring 2007, I created a course on The Essential Art of Editing. For writers, knowing how to self-edit is a matter of professional life and death. Editing also happens to be a window into the marvelous and sometimes maddening world of publishing. This course was for aspiring writers and anyone else interested in how books and stories progress from writer’s draft to publisher’s polished product. It was a fun course, with a varied and impressive group of participants.
In Fall 2002 I inaugurated a writing course called Shaping your Story for the Rice University’s Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies. I was grateful to have this opportunity to engage the art and craft of writing stories. As above, if you want to learn, teach!
Introduction to Writing Science Fiction
In 2001 the School of Continuing Studies at Rice University asked me to teach a course on writing science fiction. I covered both how to write in this genre and its illustrious history. The bibliography ran to five pages. It gave me great pleasure to take a fresh and critical look at the classics that shaped the field.