Internal and External Exiles with Madeline Beach Carey

Course Summary

This three-hour seminar is an intensive, deep-dive into one of the topics Madeline Beach Carey teaches in her six-week workshop On Writing Home, which is designed for people writing about their home country whilst living—or having lived—far from their place of birth or the place they call home.

Course Outline

Through close readings of stories by Mavis Gallant, Leila Aboulela, Joseph O’Neill, and William Trevor, you will analyse craft issues such as setting, character development, and the role of dialogue. While exploring these writers’ stories you will also discuss exile and its emotional use in fiction, most especially the ways “home” functions in the subconscious and interior lives of many characters.

Participants are expected to read the selected texts provided by the instructor before the start of the seminar. The session will also include time for writing exercises in order to provide jumpstarts for the students’ own creative work—a chance to generate new material and experiment with form and voice.

During this intensive session we will not be workshopping students’ own material.

Course Outcomes

For writers who might not be able to commit to a weekly session this three-hour close-reading seminar is an excellent opportunity to explore themes of both internal and external exile in the work of four master short story writers.

Madeline Beach Carey is the author of the story collection Les filles dels altres. Her work has appeared in Southword, El Món d’Ahir, de/rail, RIC Journal, echoverse,The Sultan’s Seal, Full Stop, The Momentist, and elsewhere. Carey has been the recipient of awards and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Edward Albee Foundation, Faber Residency, Hawthornden Castle, Greywood Arts, and Ventspils House.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she lives in Barcelona, Spain.