Augustus Rose

Fiction

I am primarily a novelist, and secondarily a screenwriter. I believe that writing is a process of discovery and that a writer should follow her interests, especially when they lead her into weird or unexpected territory. Because this territory is singular to each writer this process can be encouraged but not taught. But the mechanics of writing can, and as a teacher I tend to focus most heavily on narrative structure, conflict, and character arc, and how these areas intersect and drive one another.  

My debut novel The Readymade Thief (Viking 2017) is about a young woman at the center of a mystery involving the art of Marcel Duchamp, the dark net, urban exploration, and the shotgun marriage of alchemy and string theory. My screenplay Far From Cool was a finalist for the Academy Nicholl Fellowship. My current novel-in-progess takes place in a San Francisco high school in the early 1980s.   

Conferences and panels:  

The Postmasters Gallery in NYC: “The Readymade Thieves” Panel on Marcel Duchamp with Artist Serkan Ozkaya 

University of Chicago 2017 Humanities Day: Research and the Literary Imagination: Poetry, Fiction, and Nonfiction 

2017 Harbor Springs Festival of the Book:  When History and Storytelling Collide 

I’ve advised everything from novels-in-progress to story collections to screenplays to a single-paragraph experimental novella. I don’t judge or discriminate according to genre, only by the quality of the work. I see it as my job to help students evolve and improve their own work as much as possible, according to a student’s own vision of that work.  

• Advanced Fiction Workshop: Narrative Structure and Character Arc  
• Advanced Fiction Workshop: Narrative Questions & Character Revelation  
• Technical Seminar in Fiction: Research and World-Building  
• Technical Seminar in Fiction: Crime & Story 
• Fundamentals in Creative Writing: The Question of Perspective  

The Readymade Thief (New York: Viking Books, 2017)