Instructor P.C. Verrone is a writer of page and stage and his debut novel Rabbit, Fox, Tar is forthcoming from Catapult in 2026. His work has appeared in FIYAH Magazine, PodCastle, Nightmare Magazine, and numerous anthologies. He is the winner of the 2024 Otherwise Award, 2021 Bridport Prize for Flash Fiction, and WNDB’s Black Creatives Revisions Workshop. He has been awarded fellowships and residencies from Tin House, Playwrights’ Center, Generation Now, and New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Newark. He lives in Dallas with his husband, a historian.

Learn more about P.C. in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

Magical realism is a global genre of fiction that uses experimental and speculative narrative techniques to explore the ordinary world through the uncanny.

This six-week class will focus on exploring magical realism through writing short fiction. This course is open to both genre and literary writers interested in learning the history and conventions of magical realism and applying this knowledge to their own writing.

We will reference magical realist fiction by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Han Kang, Louise Erdrich, and many others as examples of how the genre can be used in storytelling across the world.

With guidance from P.C. Verrone, each week will focus on breaking down a key aspect of magical realist literature. In the first week, P.C. Verrone will provide writing prompts to spur ideas as students begin their 5,000 max-word short stories.

We will also coordinate a workshop schedule. Over the following four weeks, we will workshop two students’ stories per week, discussing craft techniques such as characterization, voice, and tone as well as the stories’ magical realist aspects. We will also continue to discuss the conventions of magical realism in relation to the course readings. In the final week, we will discuss revision plans and tips for submitting to revised stories for publication.

Each student will leave the course with a complete short story draft, a revision plan to continue work on their story, and a stronger understanding of the genre of magical realism.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Fantasy Meets Reality: The Magical Realism Movement

Week 2: The Body Meets Nature

Week 3: Hybrid Storytelling

Week 4: Point of View

Week 5: Uncanny Structures

Week 6: Metafiction and Revision

Select readings will include: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”; Han Kang, “The Fruit of my Woman”; Louise Erdrich, “Fleur”; Kim Fu, “Liddy, First to Fly”; iman adam, “The Purpose of Bone”; Phillip B. Williams, ‘Ours', and others.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Students will leave with a stronger understanding of the conventions, history, and diversity within the genre of magical realism.
• Students will complete a draft of one 5000-word max short story.
• Students will receive feedback and a revision plan to continue working on their piece.
• Students will produce the beginning pages of multiple new stories, and a deeper understanding of the craft of fiction.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: