Welcome to the Lesson Library. All lessons are available individually and in coursepacks.
Description Prescription
This batch of lessons comes from a course that I first taught in 2010 in a live setting at The Loft Literary Center of Minneapolis. These lessons focus on going beyond the typical descriptions of action, character, and setting, into topics such as Describing with Reverence, Description Past Events, and Describing Character Attitude.
Each lesson is rooted in examples from exemplary short fiction, novel, essay, or memoir. Writers studied include Tobias Wolff, Deborah Eisenberg, and Marissa Silver.
The full coursepack is 10 lessons. 2 samples are available for free! Get them at the buttons, or scroll on for more details.
Description Prescription
Lessons are delivered as PDFs, and lesson contents can be viewed online too, in any device of course.
Lesson 1 - Describing Attitude, looking at Tobias Wolff's short story "Casualty" from The Night in Question.
Lesson 2 - Describing Past Events, looking at Marissa Silver's short story "Night Train to Frankfurt" from Alone With You.
Lesson 3 - Describing with Wonder and Attention, looking at excerpts from Nicholson Baker's 1988 novel Mezzanine.