READING MURIEL SPARK
with Emily Adrian
4 Weeks | Thursdays, 8pm - 9:30pm ET (on Zoom) | April 16 - May 7, 2026
$350 | REGISTER
Join author and GPB cofounder Emily Adrian in reading the dazzling fiction of Muriel Spark. This class will meet four times to discuss four of Spark’s most original, ambitious, and tightly constructed novels published between the 1950s and early 2000s: Loitering with Intent; Aiding and Abetting; The Girls of Slender Means; and Memento Mori. We will analyze Spark’s approach to narrative, metafiction, satire, characterization, and dialogue, asking what makes these texts profound, addictive, and hilarious.
This course is not a workshop. The majority of our class time will be used for close reading and discussion. At the end of four weeks, students working on their own creative writing projects will have an opportunity to submit an original story or novel excerpt to their instructor for extensive written feedback.
Please write to emily@greatplacebooks.com with questions.
EMILY ADRIAN is the author of Seduction Theory and several other novels. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta, The Point, EPOCH, and Joyland. She currently teaches at the 92nd Street Y and the Sewanee School of Letters. She is a founding editor of Great Place Books.
"Emily's class opened my eyes to so many new ways of thinking about fiction, as a reader and writer. I felt like I got to know the other writers in the class well, which is so rare for an online class, and is entirely thanks to her teaching. And Emily's feedback on my writing was encouraging and insightful. I loved her class so much."
— JAIME GREEN, AUTHOR OF THE POSSIBILITY OF LIFE