Please note that this is an online workshop conducted via Zoom. Participants will be provided information on how to join the online sessions.
This workshop is geared for those that have taken a previous writing workshop or have some experience with the writing process.
Lorrie Moore once said, “A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage.” The same could be said of a personal essay versus a memoir. Moore’s statement perhaps aptly describes the process of writing a book-length project—a long, difficult, and often fraught task—but it also underscores the exciting potential these projects have to portray great swaths of our complex lives and experiences. In this advanced class, meant for those who have been in a workshop previously, we will take a deep dive into workshopping your novel or memoir and the complex lives and experiences it reveals. We will address how to revise and deepen overarching creative choices such as theme, voice, character/narrator, and setting, and we will undertake a nuts-and-bolts approach to how to construct scene, tension, and overall structure. We will work on generative exercises tied to our discussions and read complementary published work, time allowing. We will also spend some time discussing the publishing process and what agents and editors are looking for in the novels and memoirs they acquire. Participants should be prepared to bring in a synopsis and to workshop one 15- to 20-page excerpt of their book-in-progress.