The 5-day short story masterclass with Hisham Bustani is designed for writers who have made a fair amount of progress and are looking for a deeper exploration of the short story form, its potential, and malleability.

The masterclass will be conducted in a discussion format, with a list of required pre-course reading that will include selected short stories and poems by Franz Kafka, Italo Calvino, Lydia Davis, Margaret Atwood, Zakaria Tamer, Charles Bukowski, Richard Brautigan, Varlam Shalamov, Yasunari Kawabata, among others.

There will be no writing required from participants, but they will be required to actively participate and contribute insights on the topics presented and discuss a selection of each other’s stories utilizing these insights in a special workshop held on day 5.

Hisham Bustani is an award-winning Jordanian author of short fiction and poetry. He is acclaimed for his bold style and unique narrative voice. English translations of his work have appeared in the Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, New England Review, The Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, among others. His most recent book is The Monotonous Chaos of Existence (Mason Jar, 2022).