Recent years have seen a crop of literary fiction adapted from classics. From the faithful– Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead recasts almost all the characters and major plot points from Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield in Appalachia–to the more loose borrowing from Macbeth in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. With titles ranging from humorous to surreal to multi-generational sagas, this multiple-month close reading group will provide writers the opportunity to think about the relationship between original and retelling in the specific novels we’ll read while also asking bigger questions about what adaptations offer contemporary writers. What do contemporary author’s decisions about where to adhere loyally to their original inspiration and where to interpret more loosely tell us? What does the perennial appeal of the retelling indicate about the way we tell and understand stories?
Proposed reading schedule:
- October 2: Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead and Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield
- December 4: Ian McEwans’s Atonement and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse
- February 5: Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Shakespeare’s Macbeth
- April 2: Ann Napolitano’s Hello, Beautiful and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women
Each meeting, we’ll discuss the readings and examine key passages. Although we will do some generative writing (with the option to share with the group), this class is all about reading like a writer–perfect for those of us who wish there were English seminars for adults!
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WHERE:
In-Person or Online via ZOOM (link will be sent the week of first class)
DATES:4 Wednesdays
Oct. 2, Dec. 4, Feb. 5, April 2
TIME:
12:30-3pm EST
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LIMITED TO 7 STUDENTS
About the Instructor...
Amanda Parrish Morgan is the author of STROLLER (Bloomsbury 2022), of which The New Yorker wrote “the central strength of the book is not comprehensiveness but the way the stroller, and Morgan’s experience of her own strollering years, become an omnidirectional magnet, pulling disparate material into friendly proximity.”
Some of Amanda’s writing has appeared in The Rumpus, LitHub, Guernica, The Millions, n+1, Electric Literature, Carve, The American Scholar, The Ploughshares Blog, JSTOR Daily, The Washington Post, Real Simple, Women’s Running and ESPNW.