Check out the lineup for Black Lawrence Press virtual events!
Structuring Your Short Story Collection
Instructor: Tayyba Kanwal
Dates: April 14
Time: 8:00 – 9:30 PM Eastern, Virtual
A carefully structured short story collection can feel to the reader as if they’ve wandered the chambers of a complex origami figure, and, by the end, emerged to behold the final creation, at once weightless and alive, its dimensionality dependent on a sense of accumulation. If the stories are linked, a chronological ordering is often eschewed by authors for something more visceral in the story world. That brief frisson that occurs as unanticipated connections cohere in a subtle order orchestrated by the author, can hook a reader to the very end and keep them coming back for multiple reads. Some collections are lightly linked, more interested in their worlds rather than the lifetimes of characters. Others build toward a novelistic arc, even as each story speaks on its own terms. In this workshop, we will explore the very distinct structures of several short story collections such as American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell, Love Medicine by Louise Erdrich, Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa, What is Not Yours is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi, Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang. Designed for writers at any stage of their journey in with their short story collection, this workshop will be interactive, inviting participants to look at their collection of stories (planned or complete, still simmering or fully written) afresh, inspired by the examples of masterful collections.
Crafting the Course: Designing and Delivering Creative Writing Classes for Adults
Instructor: Gwendolyn Paradice
Dates: March 15, 22, 29, and April 5, 12
Time: 4-6 PM Eastern, Virtual
Crafting the Course is a pedagogical workshop for those new to teaching creative writing, and completion of the workshop prepares participants to design and deliver their own creative writing courses. From inception to course arc, options for different workshop formats/models, and grading/assessment, Crafting the Course aims to help those in higher education and those outside of it create informed and thoughtful classes. Each two-hour meeting includes open discussion, brief lectures, generative prompts related to course creation and pedagogy, as well as additional, recommended readings.