Shouts and Murmurs: Cultivating Your Voice

Everyone’s looking for the next fresh, new, exciting voice in writing— but what exactly is a writer’s voice and how do you find yours? What does it mean to have an “authentic” voice? How does one nurture and cultivate a truly unique and indelible voice?

In this five-week class, students will learn to develop and hone their writing voice through writing prompts, exercises, lectures, and readings. We will read and learn from the techniques, charms, and inventions of writers like Janet Frame, Tony Tulathimutte, Qiu Miaojin, Alice Sola Kim, Brontez Purnell, Tommy Pico, Morgan Parker, Grace Paley, Vladimir Nabokov, and Roberto Bolano.

We will embrace experimentation with as much verve as we do restraint. We will learn how to balance confidence with humility, and adventure with order. This course is appropriate for writers of all levels and disciplines. Whether you are a beginner still finding your footing or a more advanced writer looking to take more risks, this course will challenge and support you on your journey to discover and evolve your writer’s voice.

About Jenny Zhang

With writing that often focuses on the Chinese American immigrant experience, Jenny Zhang is known for her frank humor, emotional directness, and subversive thought about race, femininity, and love in contemporary America.

Jenny once taught English at a lycée in the South of France and also in a Hungarian mountain village on the side of the Romanian border. Today, she lives in New York City where she’s at work on a novel and screenplay.