From menus and instructions to to-dos and top tens, lists reveal the story of modern life. Think of how much self-revelation is in your grocery list, your speed dial list, or your list of medications. On the page, lists can deepen a sense of setting or character, or themselves provide the scaffolding for high-wire prose.

In this class, authors Desiree Cooper and Julia Brown will explore how to use lists to elevate your fiction. We’ll analyze many examples and consider the local and overall effects of lists on the prose they inhabit. Writers discussed include Claudia Rankine, Tim O’Brien, Jamaica Kincaid, Thom Jones, Lorrie Moore, Leonard Michaels, Joan Didion, and others.

We’ll work through an exercise or two in class. You’ll get additional prompts that you can incorporate into your works in progress, or use to generate new work. You’ll also walk away with your own extensive list—stories, novels, poems, and essays you can further explore to widen your sense of narrative possibility.

Add this class to your to-do list for December!