Transforming Form

Came across a creative writing course outline from the early 90s (Transforming Form: Creative Writing from a Gay & Lesbian Perspectives). I proposed that "Through a series of directed readings and structured exercises, participants will integrate an awareness of anticipated reader(s) into critical responses to their own work and that of their peers."

Weeks three, four and five are oddly telling at this distance in time:

Week 3
Travelogue or Mystery (Class Choice)
What differences count? Here and There. Seeing differently? There and Here.

Week 4
Sexually Explicit Writing
Audre Lorde excerpt from Zami
Robin Metcalfe, "The Shirt" Mandate 1983
Killing the cliche; unleashing fantasy; realism and sexual representation.

Week 5
Marking Passages/Testimonials
An examination of obituaries and tributes selected [...]

I am struck all these years later by the route from mystery and travel through the sexually explicit to mourning and remembrance. Was a time that to express grief was as radical an act as to talk sex.

I smile at the final week:

Week 10
Borders
Joanna Russ The Female Man
Samuel Delany Stars In My Pocket Like Grains of Sand

Science fiction; utopias; writing for the open audience

I now imagine that writing for the open might be like setting a trip wire for one person, me. The audience, revisiting old aspirations, familiar territory grown novel once again, is transported, marvelling at what could be done. Setting a trip wire for unknown special effects.

As far as trip wires go, the thinnest is sometimes toughest.

I burnt the syllabus. All that I have left is what is recorded here.

And so for day 433
19.02.2008