I Will Be Teaching Quakers

Beginning in January, 2009, I will begin teaching in the Creative Writing program at The University of Pennsylvania. I am STOKED about this, and hope to make my creative writing class as creative as possible.

My class is called, "Creative Writing: Space, Place, and Character in Playwriting and Fiction" and has the following course description:

This course will take a close look at the relationships of space, place and character in the effort to illuminate, appreciate, and explore the differences and similarities in Playwriting and Fiction. Weekly writing exercises will allow you to look as three-dimensionally and as actively as possible at various physical spaces, using them as a ground to form your short plays and short fiction. Through writing assignments, we’ll ask what is a "theater" space? How do different uses of space change the writing, and vice versa? What kinds of writing/language do specific spaces inspire? What kinds of character?

Coursework will also involve readings of plays, short fiction, and articles/manifestos/dialogues about writing and space. Through in-class and out-of-class assignments, students will generate a large volume of work, turning in a 20-25-page portfolio of their own short plays and fiction at the end of the semester.

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If anyone reading this (or has a friend who) is a student at UPenn, you should totally take this class. You can go to the departmental page here.

Thank you to Jessica Lowenthal, Director of Kelly Writers House; and Greg Djankian, Director of the Creative Writing Program, for making me part of the team. I am totally looking forward to it.

Rock on,

ROMERO