In this workshop we will focus on what I believe to be the real artistry of fiction: the translation of the emotional stakes of the story onto its physical landscape; the way we dip our ladles into the bottomless pot of metaphor soup of our lived and witnessed and imagined experience and pull out what we need; the way we pick up hunks of the physical world and bring it back to the page, translated into language. We will be aiming for stories and essays in which the language is always working in at least two ways at once, where metaphors dance between meanings like beads of water on a too hot grill. We will work toward demystifying some of the essential components of fiction (image, metaphor, structure, dialogue, character, scene, among others) and turning them into comprehensible tools that are at our disposal, and we will talk about the ever expanding grey area that exists between fiction and nonfiction:  the fictionalized memoir, the autobiographical novel etc.  At the same time we will honor (and hope for) the inexplicable flights of creativity (and madness?) that take a good story and make it great.

Please bring 13 copies of a manuscript of up to 15 pages of fiction to distribute to your fellow workshop members.  We will spend some percentage of class time on those manuscripts as well as writing we do all together.  Please also read Battleborn, by Claire Vaye Watkins, and The Tenth of December, by George Saunders, before the week begins.

For the memoirist, there's often nothing more challenging than the handling of time. The juxtaposition of memories creates meaning, forging connections between disparate moments. Often the key to writing memoir lies in evolving a structure which allows the writer to move in time in a way that emphasizes theme and feeling, allowing us to get at not just "what happened" but the emotional truth of the past. How do we locate the core of the memoir? We'll look at prose that organizes time in different ways, ranging from traditional narrative or associative structures to innovative formal designs, and we'll practice working with the materials of memory in new ways. Our week together will involve readings and discussion, writing exercises, and looking closely at one another's work.

Where to break a line? What makes a stanza, a stanza? What’s the big deal about iambic pentameter? When does a poem end?  These are some of the questions we will ask as we dive deeper into some of these more elusive, yet essential elements of poetry, namely: construction of the line, rhythm, figurative language, and poetic closure, among others. We will read various illustrative poems, and critique student work in an interactive workshop format for well-seasoned writers with a focus on these questions of craft. Please bring copies of two poems you’d like to workshop for distribution.