And Now, Fiction in Florence

Listen, you can sit in your dull Long Island home afraid of the next terrorist strike, or you can get out and engage the world. How about Florence?

Stony Brook Southampton’s M.F.A. program in creative writing and literature is back at it with another writers workshop in Italy, this one from Jan. 13 to 24. The focus in Florence will be on fiction with Susan Scarf Merrell. The author of a new novel, “Shirley,” about that master of the macabre Shirley Jackson, Ms. Merrell is also the fiction editor of The Southampton Review.

Beyond classes in contemporary Italian fiction, Michelangelo and the Medici family, and Italian style and design, the workshop involves outings to explore the city, the opera, the Bargello Museum, a winery, and the Italian countryside. To say nothing of the time you’ll have to play tourist on your own.

The deadline is Wednesday, and applications are free and open to all. The cost starts at $2,066.50 for the non-credit option, which does not include accommodations and airfare. The website to visit is stonybrook.edu/mfa/winter.