‘Wyrd’ was the Anglo Saxon word for fate or destiny, and we still use the word to describe those eerie coincidences in our lives. ‘How weird!’ The Fantastic, the Irreal, Fabulism, New Wave Fabulism, Magic Realism, Interstitial Fiction, Slipstream, Surrealism, the Weird. These are the names we give to stories that operate differently from mainstream ‘literary fiction’ which, in the Western world, too often means narrative realism. And yet, practitioners of the short story have been giving us alternatives to realism since its inception, and ‘literature’ now openly borrows from fantasy, horror, and science fiction to blur genre lines and actively question what we mean by the term. 

 In this class, we will write weird stories: transgressive stories that defy genre convention; stories that navigate the slipstream between horror, fantasy, science fiction and ‘literature’; stories that might contain monsters or ghosts, or at the very least threaten our sense of what is real. Our only guiding principle will come from Kafka: ‘A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.’ 

Be ready to read stories that don’t simply go bump in the night, but shake you loose from any pre-conceived notions of ‘reality’. Be prepared to write at least two new short stories (or multiple flash pieces) and revise them. Be willing to bring your dreams to life through the alchemy of language; to step off the path of the known and into the forest of the unknown!

An overnight study trip will take us to a host of weird and wonderful locations in London. 

Professor: Peter Grandbois, Professor of English, Denison University, OH. Email grandboisp@denison.edu