Food wields tremendous power, in life and in fiction. We’ll explore this idea, using food to create mood, advance plot, develop characters, and enrich stories. We’ll read examples from Aimee Bender, Lydia Davis, Antonio Tabucchi, and Banana Yoshimoto, among others. Exercises will tackle particular craft elements (mood, plot, character, and theme), and students will leave class with either a short-short story or a sketch for a longer work.

Anca L. Szilágyi is the author of Daughters of the Air, which Shelf Awareness called “a striking debut,” and Dreams Under Glass, which Buzzfeed Books called “a novel for our modern times.” She has taught creative writing since 2010.