A wide shot of a ceramics studio, featuring students working with pottery wheels and other tools.

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James McManus

Professor

Contact

Bio

Education: BA, 1974, and MA, 1977, University of Illinois at Chicago. Books: The Education of a Poker Player; Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker; Physical; Positively Fifth Street; Going to the Sun; Great America; Ghost Waves; Chin Music; Curtains; Out of the Blue. Publications: The Believer; The New Yorker; Foreign Policy; Harper's; Esquire; New York Times; The Atlantic; Paris Review; Scalawag; New Directions in Prose and Poetry; Book of Irish American Poetry From the 18th Century to the Present; Best American Poetry; Best American Science and Nature Writing; Best American Sports Writing; Best American Political Writing; Best American Magazine Writing; Best Erotic Writing in Modern Fiction. Awards: Peter Lisagor Award for Sports Journalism; Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency; two Society of Midland Authors Awards; Carl Sandburg Prize; Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry; NEA fellowships in poetry and prose. Appointments: Advisory board of the Mind Sport Research Network at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard; Lois and Willard Mackey Chair in Creative Writing at Beloit College (2010).

Courses

Title Department Catalog Term

Description

This class serves as an entry into the historical, theoretical and practical concerns of creative writing as an art form in itself and as a vital element of interdisciplinary projects. We explore the possibilities of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays and hybrid practices as writing for the page, as well as for performance, sound, installation, and image-based pieces. Students are assigned reading and writing exercises, and discuss each other's writing in workshop or small critique sessions.

Class Number

1428

Credits

3

Description

Book: Where I?m Calling From, by Raymond Carver Students will read approximately one Raymond Carver story and/or poem a day. To receive credit, you must attend at least thirteen classes on time, do all the readings and written assignments, and participate in in-class discussions. You must write at least two 150-word essays and bring 25 typed copies to class. The final project will be an analytical essay, a poem, a very short story, or a visual work. Whichever genre you choose to work in, I encourage you to channel, imitate, or otherwise creatively respond to at least one of the published works.

Class Number

1553

Credits

3

Description

While novels usually sell better, short stories and novellas often provide more intense reading experiences. Beginning with such masterpieces as 'The Dead' by James Joyce, the 20th and 21st centuries have been a golden age of short fiction. Students will read a selection of short stories and novellas from the last hundred years or so. Authors will include Alice Munro, Denis Johnson, Sandra Cisneros, Catherine Lacey, Raymond Carver, James Baldwin, Ernest Hemingway, ZZ Packer, Phil Klay, Annie Proulx, James Joyce, Carol Anshaw, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Lorrie Moore, and Stuart Dybek. Students will write a series of very short papers, one of more substantial length, and participate in in-class discussions.

Class Number

1587

Credits

3

Description

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Class Number

1272

Credits

3 - 6