Short Story Writing
Before writing their own creative works, the students of the Short Story and Novel class study the classic works of the Western tradition.
Fairytales
In our short story class students learn about the common elements of the oral tradition, including stock characters, fantastical details, random occurrences, harsh punishments for the oppressors and lavish rewards for the oppressed. Tales of the oral tradition, according to Jung and Freud, reveal much about our unconscious mind, and can be helpful in understanding ourselves as individuals and as a culture. The writing assignment gives the students a keener awareness of what the oral tradition stories involve and shows them experientially that there are certain tricks that all authors use, including modern writers, to create suspense and interest for the reader in a creative work.
Class of 2021 Fairy Tales
Class of 2020 Fairy Tales
Class of 2018 Fairy Tales
A Search in the Snow
The Purpose
Sterling’s Journey
The Queen and Her Sons
The Three Brothers and the Magic Apple
Arba and Bianca
The Closet and the General
Class of 2017 Fairy Tales
A Conquest of a Vagabond
Once upon a Time
The Eagle
Into the Sorcerer’s Lair
The Golden Hammer
Liberation of Elena Bastille
For the Good of Bedeckt
Class of 2016 Fairy Tales
The Magical Staircase
The Little Village Girl
Class of 2015 Fairy Tales
The Portrait of the Veiled Queen
Alexander Pushkin
Stories of Realism
In our short story class students learn about the school of realism, its early writers, and its particular traits. The acronym "REAL" helps students to remember what the authors of the school of realism, such as Guy de Maupassant, had set out to accomplish. Rather than write a tale of Romance in which the improbable happens and in which the characters are larger than life, writers in the school of realism attempted to make their stories realistic. The stories also deal with the everyday in which characters sat at the table and ate potato soup or dreamed of a better life. Stories of realism give no room for idealism in which the good are rewarded and the bad are punished; rather, the stories are amoral. Bad things happen to "good" people and there is no explanation given as to why. Lastly, unlike fairytales which have general or vague settings ("Once upon a time"), stories of realism have what is called local color: the settings are of a particular time and place and the details of the setting can play an important role in what happens in the story.
Class of 2021 Stories of Realism
Class of 2020 Stories of Realism
Writing Seminar
These stories, written by students of the Writing Seminar, do not reflect any particular genre, such as fantasy, realism, science fiction or naturalism. Students were instructed in plot and character development and were told to follow the artistic suggestions presented in "The Principles of Composition," in which Edgar Allan Poe asserts that the effect of a story should be the chief concern of the writer.
Stories from the Class of 2021
Love and Trust by Bridget Haselbarth
Mary of Solitude by Anna Rose Walter
A Heavy Yoke by Monica Coffey
The Hardest Sacrifice by Elise Lengkeek
2080 by Emma Lengkeek
Gloves and Palette Knives by Christian Lengkeek
Recollections of an Old Neighbor by Monica Levis
There Is Hope, Mr. Marco by Chiara Macgillivray
