The Fiction concentration prides itself on its standards of excellence, its commitment to our students and its artistic and aesthetic diversity. Adhering to any particular school of writing would be antithetical to our mission as well as impossible given the multiformity of writers on our faculty: Paul Beatty, Nicholas Christopher, Deborah Eisenberg, Richard Ford, Rivka Galchen, Heidi Julavits, Binnie Kirshenbaum, Alexandra Kleeman, Victor Lavalle, Sam Lipsyte, Ben Marcus, Ben Metcalf, Orhan Pamuk, Elissa Schappell and Gary Shteyngart. Our adjunct faculty boasts such writers as Mia Alvar, Tash Aw, James Canon, Angela Flournoy, Rebecca Godfrey, Hari Kunzru, Paul LaFarge, James Lasdun, Maureen Howard, Rob Spillman, Sadie Stein, Darcy Steinke, Lara Vapnyar, Adam Wilson and James Wood among others. Our adjunct faculty also includes editors from Random House, FSG, Grove, The Paris Review and Tin House. These brilliant writers and editors are equally brilliant teachers who work closely with their students to help them develop their own voices, styles and form, to make the work better. At the same time, students are encouraged to take risks, to push beyond the known and try something new to that particular student. In addition to workshops, students take seminars that are designed specifically for reading as writers. The depth and breadth of the seminars are astounding and exciting. To study Fiction at Columbia is transformative.