Everyone has some place they want to write about. But how to approach place-based writing without falling into the traps of preciousness, folksiness, or disgust that so often characterizes regional literature? This course encourages students of poetry and microfiction to consider instead the “Reverence of Oddity,” in which we pair strangeness with empathy to approach setting in a way that is authentic, unique, funny, and above all else, true. We’ll consider work by poets and fiction writers as we set out to create the perfectly weird, perfectly honest setting for any type of writer.