Katharine Weber is a widely published novelist and autobiographer. Before her appointment to the Richard L. Thomas Visiting Chair position at Kenyon College, she was an adjunct associate professor of creative writing at Columbia University's School of the Arts (2006-2012), Kratz Writer in Residence at Goucher College (2006), a lecturer in fiction writing at Yale (1996-2003) and a visiting lecturer in fiction writing at Connecticut College. She is the author of five novels and a memoir and has just completed her sixth novel. Her current works in progress include a fictional treatment of Aby Warburg's 1895-96 travels on the American Frontier to study the imagery of Native Americans and a novel about corrupt healers.
Katharine is an editor at large for Kenyon Review and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of American Imago. She has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle and is an associate fellow of Calhoun College at Yale University.
In 1996, Katharine was named one of…
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Katharine Weber is a widely published novelist and autobiographer. Before her appointment to the Richard L. Thomas Visiting Chair position at Kenyon College, she was an adjunct associate professor of creative writing at Columbia University's School of the Arts (2006-2012), Kratz Writer in Residence at Goucher College (2006), a lecturer in fiction writing at Yale (1996-2003) and a visiting lecturer in fiction writing at Connecticut College. She is the author of five novels and a memoir and has just completed her sixth novel. Her current works in progress include a fictional treatment of Aby Warburg's 1895-96 travels on the American Frontier to study the imagery of Native Americans and a novel about corrupt healers.
Katharine is an editor at large for Kenyon Review and is on the Editorial Advisory Board of American Imago. She has served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle and is an associate fellow of Calhoun College at Yale University.
In 1996, Katharine was named one of Granta Magazine's "50 Best Young American Novelists." Her novels have been named New York Times Notable Books three times, have twice been longlisted for the Impac Dublin Literary Award, twice shortlisted for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award, twice shortlisted for the Paterson Fiction Prize, and twice shortlisted for the Connecticut Book Award, which she won in 2007 for Triangle. Her novels have been translated and published in 16 languages. the In addition to numerous stories and essays published in anthologies, her short fiction has appeared in publications that include The New Yorker, Story, Boulevard Magenta, Connecticut Review, Five Chapters and Southwest Review. Her short story "Sleeping," widely anthologized, has been adapted into a prize-winning short film. Her reviews, essays, and journalism have appeared in publications including The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, The Chicago Tribune, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The London Review of Books, Washington Post Bookworld, Salon.com, The New York Times, New Leader, and Architectural Digest. Among her most recent publications is a paper on George Gershwin's photography in the psychoanalytic journal American Imago.
As trustee of the musical legacy of her maternal grandmother Kay Swift, Katharine is also involved in numerous musical projects, among them a play by David Caudle with music direction by Aaron Gandy, inspired by her memoir about Kay Swift and George Gershwin, which will be centered on the creation of the hit 1930 Broadway musical "Fine and Dandy."
Areas of Expertise
Creative writing: novel, novella, short story, flash fiction, narrative nonfiction, personal essay, memoir, critical essay reviews, editorials and other narrative forms.
Courses Recently Taught
ENGL 200
Introduction to Fiction Writing
ENGL 200
This course introduces students to the elements of fiction writing. While each section of the course will vary in approach and structure, activities and assignments may include intensive reading, workshops, writing, short and flash fiction, and exercises emphasizing various aspects of fiction such as place, dialogue and character. Students should check the online schedule for specific descriptions of each section. Admission to this course is open, though students may not take this course in the first semester of their first year. Seats are reserved for students in each class year. Offered annually in multiple sections.
ENGL 202
Creative Nonfiction Workshop
ENGL 202
Students in this workshop will write imaginative nonfiction in any of its traditional forms: memoirs, reflections, polemics, chronicles, idylls, lampoons, monographs, pamphlets, profiles, reviews, prefaces, sketches, remarks, complaints — anything but the traditional college essay. As in other writing workshops, attention in class will be paid above all to the writing itself, word by word, sentence by sentence. Admission to this course is open, though students may not take this course in the first semester of their first year. Seats are reserved for students in each class year. Offered in most years.
ENGL 204
Writing Fiction, Nonfiction and other Narrative Forms
ENGL 204
This course is an introductory workshop in which students will develop skills in a range of narrative strategies, reading a variety of texts: fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and graphic novels and memoirs, as well as blog essays and other relatively new formats and styles of literary expression. As these multiple forms are explored in the course of the semester, students will write new material each week, with an emphasis on understanding structure, pace, setting, time, dialogue, character and narrative voice. Students will be encouraged to experiment with fiction and nonfiction approaches to the same material. The workshop will pay rigorous attention to language and form, sentence by sentence, and will also focus on developing insights and strategies for revision.Students in this class are assumed to possess basic English writing competence and mature ability to give and receive thoughtful criticism.Admission to this course is open, though students may not take this course in the first semester of their first year. Seats are reserved for students in each class year.
ENGL 291
ST: Creative Writing Workshop
ENGL 291
ENGL 300
Advanced Fiction Writing
ENGL 300
This workshop will focus on discussion of participants' fiction as well as on exercises and playful experimentation. Principally, we will be concerned with how stories work at every level. As we consider narrative strategies and practical methods for developing individual styles, along with approaches to revising work, we also will read, as writers, a variety of outside texts. Check with the English department administrative assistant for submission deadlines. Prerequisite: ENGL 200, 202 or 204 or submission of a writing sample and permission of instructor. Offered annually.
ENGL 302
Advanced Creative Nonfiction
ENGL 302
Students in this workshop will write imaginative nonfiction in any of its many forms and will write and revise one or more pieces to produce 75-90 pages over the course of the semester. As with all writing workshops, classroom discussion will require an openness to giving and receiving criticism. Outside reading will include essays and at least one book-length work by acknowledged masters of the form. To better explore questions of craft, written responses to these readings will be due each week. Check with the English department administrative assistant for submission deadlines. Prerequisite: ENGL 200, 202, 204, or a similar course; submission of writing sample; and permission of instructor.
ENGL 391
ST: Reading & Writing Novella
ENGL 391
ENGL 405
Senior Seminar in Creative Writing
ENGL 405
Offered in more than one section each year, this seminar is required for English majors pursuing an emphasis in creative writing. The course will involve critical work on a topic chosen by the instructor (such as "Reliable and Unreliable: Investigating Narrative Voice," "Beginnings and Endings," "The Little Magazine in America" and "Documentary Poetics") to provide context and structure for students' creative work. Students should check online listings for the specific focus of each section. Although not primarily a workshop, this seminar will require students to work on a substantial creative project (fiction, nonfiction or poetry). Students pursuing honors will take ENGL 497 rather than the Senior Seminar. Open only to senior English majors who are completing the emphasis in creative writing.
ENGL 491
ST: Sr Sem in Creative Writing
ENGL 491
ENGL 493
Individual Study
ENGL 493
Individual study in English is a privilege reserved for senior majors who want to pursue a course of reading or complete a writing project on a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum. Because individual study is one option in a rich and varied English curriculum, it is intended to supplement, not take the place of, coursework, and it cannot normally be used to fulfill requirements for the major. An IS will earn the student 0.5 units of credit, although in special cases it may be designed to earn 0.25 units. To qualify to enroll in an individual study, a student must identify a member of the English department willing to direct the project. In consultation with that faculty member, the student must write a 1–2 page proposal for the IS that the department chair must approve before the IS can go forward. The chair’s approval is required to ensure that no single faculty member becomes overburdened by directing too many IS courses. In the proposal, the student should provide a preliminary bibliography (and/or set of specific problems, goals and tasks) for the course, outline a specific schedule of reading and/or writing assignments, and describe in some detail the methods of assessment (e.g., a short story to be submitted for evaluation biweekly; a thirty-page research paper submitted at course’s end, with rough drafts due at given intervals). Students should also briefly describe any prior coursework that particularly qualifies them for their proposed individual studies. The department expects IS students to meet regularly with their instructors for at least one hour per week, or the equivalent, at the discretion of the instructor. The amount of work submitted for a grade in an IS should approximate at least that required, on average, in 400-level English courses. In the case of group individual studies, a single proposal may be submitted, assuming that all group members will follow the same protocols. Because students must enroll for individual studies by the seventh class day of each semester, they should begin discussion of their proposed individual study well in advance, preferably the semester before, so that there is time to devise the proposal and seek departmental approval before the registrar’s deadline.
Academic & Scholarly Achievements
2011
The Memory of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities. Crown, 2011; Broadway, 2012.
2010
True Confections. Shaye Areheart Books, 2010. Broadway Books, 2011 (Finalist, Connecticut Book Award.)
2006
Triangle. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2006. Picador, 2007. (Winner, Connecticut Book Award; Finalist, Paterson Fiction Prize; Finalist, John Gardner Fiction Book Award; Long list, Dublin/Impac Literary Award.)
2003
The Little Women. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2003. Picador 2004. (New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year; Library Journal Best Book of the Year; Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year; Finalist, Paterson Fiction Prize; Finalist, Connecticut Book Award.)
1999
The Music Lesson. Crown Publishers, Inc., 1999. Picador, 2000. Broadway Books, 2011. (New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year; Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year; Library Journal Best Book of the Year.)
1995
Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear. Crown Publishers, Inc, 1995. Picador, 1996. Broadway Books, 2011. (New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year; Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year; Library Journal Best Book of the Year; Long list, Dublin/Impac Literary Award.)