CRWT 418/610G: “Creative Writing and Publishing for Sci-fi and Fantasy Authors”

August 21-October 10, 2023

Dreaming of a career as a sci-fi/fantasy author? This class covers every element of what you’ll need to know both for the writer you are today and the one you want to be someday. What makes a strong and compelling protagonist? How much world-building do you need to do before you start writing? How do you come up with a cool magic system? What does “story structure” mean from an authorial perspective? How do you develop an idea into a plot? How do you publish a short story or a novel once you’ve written it? What are advances, royalties, and licensable rights, and how do you get paid for your creative work? Will you need a literary agent? What are an author’s responsibilities to their audience? We will answer all these questions and more, but at the end of the day, there’s only one thing to learn: All you have to do is tell a good story. Everything else is window dressing.

LING 413/ENG 610G: “Linguistics, Culture, and Conflict”

This course introduces elements from sociolinguistics and pragmatics to explore how linguistics relates to DEI and cross-cultural competence. In it, we will discuss controversial social and political issues and drivers of conflict in the workplace and the world. Topics will include communication styles, conversational implicature, linguistic identity construction, and how we use linguistic cues to categorize others. Hot button issues will include microaggressions, BLM, pronouns, and “wokeness.”