BA, Vassar College. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College. Author of The Unfortunates: a novel, which was shortlisted for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, a Barnes & Noble Discover Award Finalist, and named a notable or best book by The Washington Post, EW, TIME, Time Out, and The Evening Standard. McManus's stories and essays have appeared in American Short Fiction, O, Tin House, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. McManus is a recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the Saltonstall Foundation, and the Jentel Foundation. She has worked in book publishing and as an editor and writing coach and has taught writing at various institutions including SUNY Purchase, St. Joseph’s College, and Sarah Lawrence College. SLC, 2016–2020; 2025–
Previous Courses
MFA Writing
Fiction Workshop: The Long Con—Novels and Linked Story Collections
Workshop—Fall
How to simultaneously free and capture time, invent and people a world, effect some profound change to that world, and come to an ending as inevitable as it was mysterious to you, even as you wrote it? That’s challenge enough. But while writing a longer work over months or years, you the author are also changing. In this generative workshop, we’ll look at both the craft and the process of writing. We’ll discover and deepen our long-form fictions-in-progress through a consideration of language, narration, character, point of view, dialogue, pacing, detail, plot, place, and time. We’ll examine different approaches to structure, keeping in mind that there is no “right” way into a narrative. Workshop discussion will aim, through thoughtful and empathic close reading, to help the author realize his/her conception of the work. Students will have the opportunity to workshop twice. Mid-semester, we will pair up for further editorial exchange. The published works we read will primarily be writing-on-writing and will include authors such as Elizabeth Bowen, Anton Chekhov, Annie Dillard, Milan Kundera, Peter Mendelsund, Flannery O’Connor, Zadie Smith, David Foster Wallace, Joy Williams, James Wood, and George Saunders. We’ll also consider (mostly) optional weekly writing prompts based on students’ projects and interests. In the second half of the semester, we’ll work on practical approaches to organizing and managing a long work and toward honing in on making your particular revision process both pleasurable and illuminating. Works anywhere from recently begun to many years in draft are welcome; but please note that among workshop, conference, and individual exchange, you will share anywhere from 60 to 100 consecutive pages over the course of the semester.
Faculty
Writing
The Moment of Your Story: Time in Fiction
Open, Seminar—Fall
WRIT 3455
In "Love After Love" Derek Walcott wrote: "The grand clock of my life was broken." More than other arts, literature is bound up with time and time with storytelling. In this workshop, we will ask: What path through time should my story take; what does this mean for my characters and the worlds I am making; and. on a technical level, how the heck do I get there? Starting with Joan Silber's The Art of Time in Fiction, we will experiment with what Silber calls "classic," "slow," and "long" times. We will also consider flash fiction and compression, causality, chronology, and circularity. In the latter part of the semester, we will write outside of time's boundaries—into dream and memory, lands of the dead, time travel, other worlds, and nonhuman perspectives. Short readings, provided as a packet at the beginning of the course, will include stories and excerpts from Nicholson Baker, Jorge Luis Borges, Octavia Butler, Ted Chiang, Annie Ernaux, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kelly Link, Juan Rulfo, George Saunders, Leslie Marmon Silko, Leo Tolstoy, and Jean Toomer. Outside of class, students will write each week in a different time style. Wild swings, subversions, and “messy” experimentation are most welcome. This class will be generous and flexible, with plenty of room for students to follow what most interests them in their own writing. Students will expand one (or more!) pieces of work in the second half of the semester.