Taste is Character: Writing Pop Culture

Wednesdays via Zoom, 7-9 PM EST

October 28, 2026 - December 9, 2026 (no class on November 25)

$700 (E-mail to sign up)

About the Instructor

Ira’s debut essay collection, Pure Innocent Fun, was sold at auction in 2021 to Random House and became a national bestseller. The book was called "humorous and perceptive" by The Washington Post, and Ira was called "a brilliant critical voice" by Kirkus Reviews. Ira’s recent short story, “Selling Vermont,” was published in Volume 0. He has also written for GQ, California Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Harper’s Bazaar, Interview, and more. For television, he has written for Daybreak, Uncoupled, Q-Force, So Help Me Todd, and Nikki Fresh.

The Course

Taste is Character: Writing Pop Culture, Writing Fiction.

What does it mean to write critically about pop culture in fiction or creative non-fiction? What happens when a character encounters a song, movie, TV show, or book? How can writing about culture allow us to write more deeply about identity, desire, memory, and the world around us? This won’t be me teaching you how to make pop culture references. It’s about how to make cultural criticism function as fiction. We’ll study short fiction, creative non-fiction, and excerpts from novels. Six weeks this fall.

There will be a final assignment of a 2,000-3,000 word short story or a novel excerpt in which pop culture is structurally necessary to the story. The class will include close reading, generative exercises, and peer workshops.