Image and Text: A Generative Craft Seminar

Photographs, illustrations, ekphrasis, comics, visual essays, documentary fiction; how do we create conversations between text and image that allow poems, fiction, and essays to travel across time, space, and genre? How can visual play and experimentation inspire our written work? This seminar will explore texts in a variety of genres that incorporate visual images into the space of their writing. We'll look at examples of these kinds of hybrid works from writers like Victoria Chang, Matthea Harvey, W.G. Sebald, and Michael Ondaatje. In response to these texts, you'll have the chance to experiment with your own visual/text hybrids that might include collages, photo essays, stencil poetry, and documentary flash fiction. You do not need to have any visual art experience/knowledge to participate in this seminar.