Graduate Fiction Workshop 

Instructor: Daniel Alarc�n, da@danielalarcon.com 
HB Room 405, Weds, 4:00 -6:45pm 
Office hours Wed, 2-4 or by appointment 

A successful workshop, in my view, is one that encourages and rewards 
experimentation. Creating art is difficult enough without the pressure of feeling it 
must be perfect in a first draft�best to understand now that it never is. Our 
primary obsession in this course will be student work: how it functions, whether it 
is accomplishing that which it set up to do, always reading�or attempting to 
read�a story on its own terms. Students should be generous, careful readers, 
without ever cutting a story slack when it does not deserve it. Students should 
think of their submitted stories and the subsequent discussion as part of a 
binding trust: the bravery required to create art must be respected, and part of 
that respect entails an honesty, which might at times seem fairly brutal. I�ll be 
present to referee, of course, but respectful criticism should be accepted as part 
of the process. Because it is not perfect, we must not talk about it as if it were. 

But a workshop should be more than simply a place to discuss student stories: it 
should also be forum in which to debate ideas, politics, art, culture, news, 
esoterica of any stripe�all of those components which define the world in which 
we are writing. Art never exists in a vacuum. Students are encouraged to bring in 
issues for conversation and dialogue. 

Below, please sign up for two dates to workshop original fiction. Bring 
enough copies for everyone on the week before your assigned workshop. 
Students will provide detailed, thorough, written responses on their classmates� 
work. These will be turned in to me as well, at least for the first half of the 
semester. In turn, authors will hand in brief evaluations of the comments they 
receive (answering the following queries: what they learned, what was most 
surprising about the comments, and how they feel the story can improve). These 
will be due the week after a student has been workshopped. 

Please note: Submissions via email cannot be accepted. 

There is only one required text: Roberto Bola�o�s short novel Distant Star. Every 
other week, we will discuss a published story by an international author. These 
readings will be distributed to students the week before they are to be discussed. 
Three students will be responsible for leading the forty-five discussion around 
these pieces. 

I�ll be available to meet with students at any time throughout the semester, 
location TBD. To make an appointment, just email me. 


SJSU GFW Schedule 

January 26 

Introduction / Syllabus 
�The Colonel Says I Love You�, Sergei Dovlatov / Exercise 

February 2 

1. ____________________ 
2. ____________________ 
�Insular Menu,� Ronaldo Men�ndez 
February 9 

3. ____________________ 
4. ____________________ 
5. ____________________ 
February 16 

6. ____________________ 
7. ____________________ 
�The Headstrong Historian�, Chimamanda Nogzi Adichie 
February 23 

8. ____________________ 
9. ____________________ 
10. ____________________ 

March 2 

11.____________________ 
12.____________________ 
�Immortality�, Yiyun Li 

March 9 

13.____________________ 
14.____________________ 
15.____________________ 

March 16 

16.____________________ 
17.____________________ 
�Tailor�s Dummies,� Bruno Schulz 

March 23 (no class)
March 30 (Spring Break) 

April 6 

18.____________________ 
19.____________________ 
Distant Star, Roberto Bola�o 

April 13 

20.____________________ 
21.____________________ 
22.____________________ 


April 23 

23.____________________ 
24.____________________ 
�Blind Jozef Pronek,� Aleksandar Hemon 

April 30 

25.____________________ 
26.____________________ 
27.____________________ 

May 4 

28.____________________ 
29.____________________ 
�Olingiris�, �The Digger�, and �My Uncle Walter�, Samanta Schweblin 

May 11 

30.____________________ 
31.____________________ 

32. ____________________