Adulting is stressful. One day you’re turning somersaults on the lawn, and the next day you’re dealing with job interviews and the interest on your student loans. In this discussion-driven literature class, we’ll read novels and short stories that depict the shift from the teen years to adulthood in a wide range of contexts, from Jane Austen’s 19th-century England to Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam War experience and from the graphic novel to speculative fiction. During the course of the seminar, you'll write a letter to your former (or future) self, meet a renowned local author and ask them questions about their work, dig through a literary archive, and experiment with adopting the persona of a fictional character. This seminar fulfills a Writing Intensive requirement, which means we’ll explore our own and others’ stories of coming-of-age while also spending some quality time on literary exercises and experiments.