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Tag Archive for: online workshop

Electric Lit Presents: The Craft of Covid in Fiction

The dynamic, unpredictable nature of the pandemic has forced novelists to become pundits, predicting what the world will look like when their novels are published.

They also face unique craft challenges: how do masks affect dialogue, character descriptions, and scene? How do social distancing and quarantine warp relationship dynamics?

Rebecca Makkai chose to move the events of I Have Some Questions for You to 2018, but still had to negotiate Covid protocol for courtroom scenes set in 2022. The protagonist of Weike Wang’s Joan Is Okay is an emergency room doctor in New York City; when Covid hit, Wang revised the novel to feature overwhelmed hospitals. A deadly flu ravages the globe in Phase Six by Jim Shepard, and the lessons of the Covid pandemic are in the distant past.

These three novelists will discuss the drafting and revision process of their novels and explain how they tackled the ever-changing question of how Covid should factor into their work.  Moderated by Halimah Marcus.

This year’s Masquerade of the Red Death is celebrating excellence in pandemic fiction with special guests and book giveaways at our party in Brooklyn on Friday, October 21, as well as related virtual salons. This salon is free for Masquerade ticket-holders*, $10 for the general public, and $5 for EL members.

*Masquerade ticket holders will receive an email with a discount code to register for free.

on October 6 2022· Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Porch: The Origins of the Original with Visiting Writer Rebecca Makkai

When we sit down to write, the first words, scenes, characters, conflicts, and settings we come up with are often the least original ones of which we’re capable. Digging past the obvious, the stock (and even the products of the collective unconscious), we might finally arrive at stories that are strikingly new and memorable. In this class we’ll cover some key elements of originality — specificity, idiosyncrasy, complexity, repetition, and change — and talk about accessing them both in drafting and revision.

For writing to succeed, it must be both well-executed and original. While originality might seem intuitive, or even a product of the writer’s personality, it’s in fact a skill that can be sharpened. That’s what we’ll be doing.

Online Workshop Via Zoom

Saturday, April 30th, 2022 | 2:00pm – 4:00pm CT

$68 for members

$75 for non members

on April 30 2022· Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Speakeasy Workshop: Reading Like A Writer

Wednesdays September 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th join me to learn to read like a writer. In this discussion- and lecture-based class, we’ll use short assigned texts to become stronger and more engaging writers. This workshop has four sessions.

We tend to read as readers and then write as writers, missing out on many of the craft lessons we could be learning from the stories, novels, and memoirs we love. You might pause to admire a great line, but when was the last time you took apart an author’s structure, or charted out their use of tension, or examined their scenes as units?

In this four-week class, we’ll use short assigned texts as jumping-off points for craft talks about scene structure, summary and exposition, character interiority and exteriority, and stakes. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to read (and even watch movies) for craft so that we’ll never run out of free writing education.

Class meetings will be discussion-and-lecture based; this is not a workshop class. Students will have access to an exclusive community to continue the discussion outside of class time, sharing reading notes and recommendations.

Course Info: Wednesdays | Sep 8 – Sep 29 | 5pm PT / 8pm ET| 90 min | Limited to 20 participants
Price: $400.00 for all four sessions: September 8, September 15, September 22, September 29, 2021

on September 29 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Speakeasy Workshop: Reading Like A Writer

Wednesdays September 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th join me to learn to read like a writer. In this discussion- and lecture-based class, we’ll use short assigned texts to become stronger and more engaging writers. This workshop has four sessions.

We tend to read as readers and then write as writers, missing out on many of the craft lessons we could be learning from the stories, novels, and memoirs we love. You might pause to admire a great line, but when was the last time you took apart an author’s structure, or charted out their use of tension, or examined their scenes as units?

In this four-week class, we’ll use short assigned texts as jumping-off points for craft talks about scene structure, summary and exposition, character interiority and exteriority, and stakes. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to read (and even watch movies) for craft so that we’ll never run out of free writing education.

Class meetings will be discussion-and-lecture based; this is not a workshop class. Students will have access to an exclusive community to continue the discussion outside of class time, sharing reading notes and recommendations.

Course Info: Wednesdays | Sep 8 – Sep 29 | 5pm PT / 8pm ET| 90 min | Limited to 20 participants
Price: $400.00 for all four sessions: September 8, September 15, September 22, September 29, 2021

on September 22 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , , ,

Speakeasy Workshop: Reading Like A Writer

Wednesdays September 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th join me to learn to read like a writer. In this discussion- and lecture-based class, we’ll use short assigned texts to become stronger and more engaging writers. This workshop has four sessions.

We tend to read as readers and then write as writers, missing out on many of the craft lessons we could be learning from the stories, novels, and memoirs we love. You might pause to admire a great line, but when was the last time you took apart an author’s structure, or charted out their use of tension, or examined their scenes as units?

In this four-week class, we’ll use short assigned texts as jumping-off points for craft talks about scene structure, summary and exposition, character interiority and exteriority, and stakes. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to read (and even watch movies) for craft so that we’ll never run out of free writing education.

Class meetings will be discussion-and-lecture based; this is not a workshop class. Students will have access to an exclusive community to continue the discussion outside of class time, sharing reading notes and recommendations.

Course Info: Wednesdays | Sep 8 – Sep 29 | 5pm PT / 8pm ET| 90 min | Limited to 20 participants
Price: $400.00 for all four sessions: September 8, September 15, September 22, September 29, 2021

on September 15 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Speakeasy Workshop: Reading Like A Writer

Wednesdays September 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th join me to learn to read like a writer. In this discussion- and lecture-based class, we’ll use short assigned texts to become stronger and more engaging writers. This workshop has four sessions.

We tend to read as readers and then write as writers, missing out on many of the craft lessons we could be learning from the stories, novels, and memoirs we love. You might pause to admire a great line, but when was the last time you took apart an author’s structure, or charted out their use of tension, or examined their scenes as units?

In this four-week class, we’ll use short assigned texts as jumping-off points for craft talks about scene structure, summary and exposition, character interiority and exteriority, and stakes. Most importantly, we’ll learn how to read (and even watch movies) for craft so that we’ll never run out of free writing education.

Class meetings will be discussion-and-lecture based; this is not a workshop class. Students will have access to an exclusive community to continue the discussion outside of class time, sharing reading notes and recommendations.

Course Info: Wednesdays | Sep 8 – Sep 29 | 5pm PT / 8pm ET| 90 min | Limited to 20 participants
Price: $400.00 for all four sessions: September 8, September 15, September 22, September 29, 2021

on September 8 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , ,

Lighthouse Lit Fest: Interiority Complex

The great advantage of prose (over theater, film, and life) is that we’re privy to characters’ interior states. But how can a writer get thoughts and emotions across, other than by stating them flat-out or by updating us constantly on breathing and heart rate? We’ll explore ways to use tangent, gesture, backstory, action, association, and more to give characters a rich internal life without resorting to the old cardiopulmonary check-in.

This class accommodates 25+ writers.

on June 10 2021· Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,

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