August 4, 2015
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE with CALGARY’S POET LAUREATE AT ALBERTA COLLEGE OF ART + DESIGN THIS FALL
This Fall, Calgary’s Poet Laureate, and Alberta College of Art + Design Instructor, Derek Beaulieu will be asking students to tell stories by playing games.
Last year Beaulieu offered a course in Creative Writing using manual typewriters, this year students will study and build games and books.
The entire course will focus on “Choose Your Own Adventure” books with classic 1980s volumes as well as contemporary literary examples (from Canada and around the globe) of novels and poems which are made in the style of games and choose-your-own-adventures. Students will examine tabletop games, narrative dice, shuffle books and card games and more.
These texts and games help students explore written stories that take the form of video games and websites; a form of writing where the story is made – and the adventure had – by combining the efforts of the author and reader. A dynamic way of exploring what it means to write today.
Like many other ACAD courses, this course is fully transferable for credit at other Albertan universities and colleges.
In order to make this course a success, he is seeking the donation of “choose your adventure” paperbacks, basic role-playing games and narrative card games. Donations will be offered to students as a means of focussing on student experience and hands-on learning.
ABOUT DEREK BEAULIEU:
Derek Beaulieu is Calgary’s 2014-2016 Poet Laureate and a multiple award-winning sessional instructor of Creative Writing and Literature. He has taught at ACAD for 5 years and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Roehampton University (London, UK).
Beaulieu received the 2014 National CCWWP ROBERT KROETSCH TEACHING AWARD for teaching classes that are “intimate and focus on making. Studio courses are balanced with lectures and seminars, enabling students to apply theoretical stances within a creative, hands-on environment.”
He is the author of 8 books of poetry (most recently a volume of his visual poetry entitled KERN), 4 volumes of fiction and a book of essays. Beaulieu’s work is consistently praised as some of the most radical and challenging in contemporary Canadian writing.
Semester: Fall 2015
Department: School of Critical and Creative Studies
Instructor: Derek Beaulieu
Course: English 217B – Introduction to Narrative
Dates / Times / Location: Thursdays from 9:00-11:50, ACAD Room 532, stating Sept 9, 2015.
For more information, or to discuss this unusual course, contact Derek Beaulieu: derek@housepress.ca
derek beaulieu's blog 