The Shadows We Cast: Writing the Irish Short Story
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Over twelve weekly sessions, this course will facilitate student engagement with writing creatively, with a concentration on the short story form. Concurrently, participants will trace the development of the modern Irish short story as a literary genre from the late nineteenth century to the present day.
An exploration of the elements of successful storytelling, such as openings, voice, point of view, characterisation, dialogue, and plot, will constitute the backbone of the course. As part of a reflective process on their practice of writing and of reading, students will keep a journal.
As we write, we will explore the influence of the oral tradition of storytelling and Ireland’s dual linguistic heritage on the short story form. We will examine how the genre reached maturity in the work of James Joyce, Frank O’Connor, and Elizabeth Bowen, tracing international influences and resonances as we progress to consider the treatment of the form by such writers as Mary Lavin, John McGahern, Roddy Doyle, Claire Keegan, Kevin Barry, and Danielle McLaughlin.
Knowledge Skills: Cultural, Historical, and Literary
Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
- Interpret how cultural trends throughout the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries are represented in the Irish short story
- Illustrate how post colonialism and a multilinguistic heritage have shaped Irish culture and literature
Critical Thinking Skills: Oral and Written
- Approach writing a short story in its various forms
- Identify and understand how stories convey meaning
- Effectively critique draft work and provide constructive oral and written feedback
Attitudinal Skills: Affective and Behavioural
- To value writing and literature as a means of engaging with and understanding new cultures
Each session will consist of a presentation by the tutor and a forum for discussion of the assigned readings. This will be followed by group and individual writing exercises that will focus on spontaneity, experimentation, and the practice of craft. Field trips to sites of cultural, historical, and literary significance, attendance at public readings, performances, and film screenings will complement the students’ experience of this course.
PLEASE NOTE:
The Writing Workshop component to the course will provide students with the opportunity to offer and receive genuine, considered, and constructive criticism of their work. Fundamental to this process is the principle that both individual confidentiality and the integrity of the class be respected at all times.
Trust between students, and between instructor and students, is essential.
Therefore, it is not acceptable to directly or indirectly make reference in the form of character, plot, action, or setting, to the characteristics or actions of any student on the program, any member of staff, or any member of faculty. Participants must also at all times remain sensitive to the convictions of others. Any attempt to directly or indirectly infer prejudice, initiate distress, or cause offence, will result in disciplinary action.
NOTE: In addition to the one-hour weekly workshop and core reading requirements, students will be expected to work independently on assigned practical exercises and production tasks, and will need to allocate a minimum of two hours per week for the fulfilment of these responsibilities.
Participation (10%); Course Journal: 12 entries, 400 words each (20%); Midterm Submission of Draft Works, 2000 words (30%); End-of-term Portfolio, 5000 words (40%)
Participation (10%):
The ambition in including a participation component is to facilitate students learning from each other and to give them the opportunity to practice and develop listening, speaking and persuasive skills. A set of simple guidelines will be introduced at the start of Session 1. These guidelines will be discussed in detail so that students have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. Below is an outline of these guidelines:
Outstanding Participant: Contributions in class reflect exceptional preparation. Ideas are consistently substantive and insightful, and persuasively presented. Absence would significantly diminish the quality of class discussion.
Good Participant: Contributions in class reflect thorough preparation. Ideas offered are usually substantive and insightful, and often persuasively presented. Absence would diminish quality of class discussion.
Adequate Participant: Contributions in class reflect satisfactory preparation. Ideas are sometimes substantive and insightful, but seldom offer a new direction for the discussion. Absence would diminish quality of class discussion.
Non-Participant: Little or no contribution in class. Subsequently, there is limited basis for evaluation. Absence would not affect the quality of class discussion.
Unsatisfactory Participant: Contributions in class reflect inadequate preparation. Ideas offered are seldom substantive, provide little insight, and are rarely constructive. Absence would improve the quality of class discussion.
Course Journal: 12 entries, 400 words each (20%):
The Journal component of the assessment for this course will provide students with the space to reflect on both their experience of the required readings and of the weekly writing workshops. Topics will be identified and prompts provided to ensure that each Journal Entry is focused and encourages students to work towards a more sophisticated and deeper appreciation of writing as an art form.
Midterm Submission of Draft Works, 2000 words (30%):
By the half-way mark, students will have approached the writing of short fiction from a variety of perspectives and in a variety of ways. The Midterm Submission will consist of character sketches, plot outlines, dialogue exercises, flash fiction pieces, and first drafts of at least one and not more than three short stories.
End-of-term Portfolio, 5000 words (40%):
This portfolio of work will consist of at least three and no more than five stories that have been thoroughly drafted and workshopped. These stories will represent the student’s best work of the term, and will be considered for inclusion in the IES Abroad Anthology of Writing.
Copies of all readings, audio, and video resources are available on IES Dublin Moodle
Barrett, Colin. Young Skins. London: Vintage, 20015.
Barry, Kevin & Smith, Olivia, eds. Winter Pages: 1. Sligo: Curlew Editions, 2015.
Barry, Kevin (ed.). Town and Country: New Irish Short Stories. London: Faber & Faber, 2014.
Boran, Pat. The Portable Creative Writing Workshop. Dublin: New Island, 2005.
Bowen, Elizabeth. The Last September. London: Vintage, 1998.
Delaney, Paul. Seán O’Faoláin: Literature, Inheritance and the 1930s. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2014.
D’hoker Elke, ed. Mary Lavin. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2013.
Doyle, Roddy. The Deportees. London: Vintage, 2008.
Enright, Anne, ed. The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story. London: Granta Publications, 2010.
Fogarty, Anne, Ní Dhuibhne, Éilís, & Walshe, Eibhear, eds. Imagination in the Classroom: Teaching & Learning Creative Writing in Ireland. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013.
Frawley, Oona, ed. New Dubliners. Dublin: New Island, 2005.
Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers. New York: Vintage, 1991.
Gleeson, Sinéad. Silver Threads of Hope. Dublin: New Island Books, 2012.
Gleeson, Sinéad, ed. The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers. Dublin: New Island Books, 2015.
Gleeson, Sinéad, ed. The Glass Shore: Short Stories by Women Writers from the North of Ireland. Dublin: New Island Books, 2016.
Joyce, James. Dubliners. London: Penguin Books, 1992.
Keegan, Claire. Walk the Blue Fields. London: Faber & Faber, 2007.
Kiberd, Declan. Inventing Ireland: The Literature of the Modern Nation. London: Vintage, 1996.
Kiberd, Declan. The Irish Writer and the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Lavin, Mary. Tales from Bective Bridge. London: Faber & Faber, 2012.
Lodge, David. The Art of Fiction. London: Penguin Books, 1992.
Meade, Declan, ed. Let’s Be Alone Together: An Anthology of New Short Stories. Dublin: The Stinging Fly Press, 2008.
Moore, George. The Untilled Field. Buckinghamshire: Colin Smythe Limited, 2000.
Morris, Thomas. We Don’t Know What We’re Doing. London, Faber & Faber, 2015.
McGahern, John. Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories. London: Faber & Faber, 2006.
McLaughlin, Danielle. Dinosaurs on Other Planets. Dublin: The Stinging Fly Press, 2015.
O’Brien, Edna. The Love Object: Selected Stories. London: Faber & Faber, 2013.
Ó Ceallaigh, Philip. Notes from a Turkish Whorehouse. London: Penguin Books, 2007.
O’Connor, Frank. The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story. New Jersey: Melville House Publishing, 2004.
Prose, Francine. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them. London: Union Books, 2012.
Rippier, Joseph Storey. The Short Stories of Seán Ó Faoláin: A Study in Descriptive Techniques. Buckinghamshire: Colin Smythe Limited, 1976.
Trevor, William (ed.). The Oxford Book of Irish Short Stories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Trevor, William. The Hill Bachelors. London: Penguin Books, 2001.
Walsh, Caroline, ed. Arrows in Flight: Short Stories from a New Ireland. Great Britain: Scribner Town House Publishers, 2002.
Wood, James. How Fiction Works. London: Picador, 2009.
Zimmermann, Georges Denis. The Irish Storyteller. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001.
Copies of all readings are available in the IES Dublin Library
Abbott, H. Porter. The Cambridge Introduction to Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Brown, Terence. Ireland: A Social and Cultural History, 1992 – 2002. London, Harper Perennial, 2004.
Browne, Renni & King, Dave. Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print. London: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006.
Cleary, Joe, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Irish Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Crowe, Catriona. Dublin 1911: A Multimedia Book. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 2011.
Fenton, Nuala, ed. Representing Art in Ireland. Cork: The Fenton Gallery, 2008.
Ferriter, Diarmuid. The Transformation of Ireland 1900 – 2000. London: Profile Books, 2005.
Rooney, Brendan, ed. Creating History: Stories of Ireland in Art. Dublin: Irish Academic Press in association with the National Gallery of Ireland, 2016.
Smyth, Gerard, & Boran, Pat, eds. If Ever You Go: A Map of Dublin in Poetry & Song. Dublin: Dedalus Press, 2014.
Smyth, Gerry. Space and the Irish Cultural Imagination. Hampshire: Palgrave, 2001.
RECOMMENDED ONLINE, ARCHIVE, AND EXHIBITION RESOURCES:
Irish Film Institute & Irish Film Archive
