Hybrid Writing

Develop a portfolio of hybrid writing that blends elements of poetry, prose, and visuals, while cultivating a writing practice rooted in experimentation and strengthening your personal voice.

This four-week course begins by examining literary fragments, lists, and etymologies, exploring how contemporary writers use these techniques to disrupt form and create resonance. Through imitation, reflection, and writing prompts, you’ll experiment with brevity, repetition, and word origins to craft hybrid texts. You'll draw inspiration from authors like Anne Carson and Bhanu Kapil while finding the forms that best hold your own voice.

As the course progresses, you’ll engage with hybrid writing shaped by speech, memory, image, and sound. You’ll examine the differences between orality and textuality, incorporate visual material like photographs or film stills into your writing, and discover how spoken language and recorded conversation can become powerful creative tools. You’ll also gain strategies for mixing genre conventions and experimenting with formal structure.

You’ll then turn inward to refine your sense of voice, influence, and revision. You’ll identify patterns in your work, engage deeper with the writers who’ve inspired you, and reframe revision as a process rather than a chore. By the end of the course, you’ll have built a strong foundation in hybrid form and a body of work ready to share—and expand—beyond the course.

What you will learn:

Prerequisite skills:

• Previous experience in any literary genre (poetry, fiction, nonfiction) encouraged.