Check out the lineup for Black Lawrence Press virtual events!
Structuring Your Short Story Collection
Instructor: Tayyba Kanwal
Date: 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.
Generative Group Writing Session
Instructor: Isaac Pickell
Date: May 1
Time: 1:00 – 3:00 PM Eastern, Virtual
Join us for a generative group writing session! Come away with new material inspired by writing prompts led by Black Lawrence Press author Isaac Pickell. Participants will be given a series of prompts, each followed by time to write silently while in community with other writers. All participants will receive:
- a PDF of additional prompts for future writing
- a surprise chapbook, mailed to your address
The Poetry of Place: Physical, Liminal, and Memory
Instructor: Sunni Wilkinson
Date: May 12
Time: 8:00 – 9:30 PM Eastern, Virtual
Poetry is filled with the emotional cartography of a poet’s life, often gleaned from the spaces the poet has occupied, physically and mentally. Where we spend our days, the places we turn to in our minds, ancestral lands and childhood neighborhoods haunt us and give dimension to our lives. Capturing those on the page, exploring their depths and mysteries, can unlock fascinating moments in our writing. This workshop aims to take the writer to the various verdant, strange, and unsettling places of their life and help them engage with those in fresh and surprising ways.
Jeremy Richards’ interviews with four contemporary poets sheds light on the profound ways that “place,” its limitations, and histories inform our identity.
Instructor: Megan Merchant
Dates: May 17, 24, 31 and June 7, 14, 21
Time: 5-7 pm Eastern, Virtual
When revising your work, do you ever wonder if you are actually improving the poem, or simply moving things around to create something new? How do you know when to trust the advice that your community of readers offer? In this six-week workshop, we will explore a practical and replicable strategy for strengthening your poems – one rooted in identifying and understanding the “why” of the process, not just the “how”. Through close readings of contemporary texts, open discussions, and generative prompts, we will cover how to find the “wisdom” of your poem (and what that means), as well as the elements that are in-service to that “wisdom”—including well-crafted images, compression and diction, framing the lens, and shaping the poem on the page. Please bring a packet of your poems (5-10) that could benefit from revision and be prepared to write. By the end of the course, you will have expanded your understanding of how to make choices to clarify your poems and think critically about your own work.