What is hybridity in literature? How does it differ from multi-genre writing? What unique invitations and permissions do hybrid writers extend to their audience, and how can hybridity broaden and deepen your literary life?
This class will highlight various approaches to writing hybrid forms, including contemporary examples and prompts to buoy your personal creative practice. During the first hour, we’ll focus our attention on the recent upsurge in literary popularity of the haibun, a 17th century prosimetric form developed by Matsuo Bashō, and during the second hour, we’ll focus on current innovations in adopted-forms (also known as “hermit crab”) writing. Resources for further reading and publication prospects will be shared.
Note: Julie Marie Wade will be doing a free joint poetry and prose reading with Lisa Dordal right after this class, from 7-8pm. There will be snacks and beverages. We encourage students to stick around!
Julie Marie Wade is the author of 16 collections of poetry, prose, and hybrid forms, including Skirted: Poems (The Word Works, 2021) and Just an Ordinary Woman Breathing (The Ohio State University Press, 2020). With Denise Duhamel, she wrote The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose (Noctuary Press, 2019) and with Brenda Miller, Telephone: Essays in Two Voices (Cleveland State University Press, 2021). A winner of the Marie Alexander Poetry Series and the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir, she teaches in the creative writing program at Florida International University. Her newest projects are Fugue: An Aural History (New Michigan Press, 2023), and Otherwise: Essays (Autumn House, 2023), chosen by Lia Purpura as the winner of the 2022 Autumn House Nonfiction Book Prize.
"Julie is an amazing teacher! She did a great job fostering an environment in which everyone seemed comfortable contributing to the discussion and she provided excellent prompt poems. I learned so much — and left the class inspired to write, write, write. This class was exactly what I needed. Thank you for offering it!"
"Julie was a wonderful instructor--prepared, enthusiastic, and welcoming. I learned a lot in this class and really enjoyed her teaching style!"
"Attending Julie Marie Wade's class opened me up to the magic that lies within learning a new, exploratory craft element. I felt inspired by Julie's enthusiastic approach to teaching the subject. I am now equipped to weave hybrid forms into my writing practice. What a gift!"
