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. The New Nature Writing Con classes on July 18-19, Saturday and Sunday, are by separate registration.
Class: “Flash Fiction” with . Registration required
As critic Sean Hooks writes, 鈥淔lash fiction is something different from just a short story writ small.鈥� Flash fiction鈥攚hich let鈥檚 define as a story of less than 1,000 words鈥攅mbraces fragmentation, chaos, rebellion, and anarchy. It breaks rules and doesn鈥檛 apologize. Jayne Anne Phillips says, 鈥淭he one-page fiction can be a compressed, weighted, perfectly balanced, read-in-one-moment example of the miracle. Fast, precise, over. And not over. The one-page fiction should hang in the air of the mind like an image made of smoke.鈥� Join us to look at some contemporary examples and then write some flash ourselves.
Class: 鈥淚n the Fewest Possible Words: Poetry鈥檚 Art of Concision鈥� with . Registration required
If poetry differentiates itself from prose as a genre often characterized by concision, how can a poem achieve this and still connect with readers? How much can a poem omit and still be fully realized? How much can a poem rely on what isn鈥檛 on the page and still be a lasting, memorable work? In this class, we will delve into poems whose brevity belie their resonance. We will explore the strategies poets use and how to implement these strategies in our own work. Attendees should come with a piece of writing鈥攁 poem or paragraph鈥攖o reimagine according to the strategies shared.
Class: 鈥淲hat If? Building Speculative Worlds from One Small Change鈥� with Megan Kruse. Registration required
What if one small change reshaped the world as we know it? In this generative writing workshop, we鈥檒l draw inspiration from writers like Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, and Emily St. John Mandel, exploring how a single imaginative twist in technology, environment, or society can become the seed of an entirely new world.
Class: “Joy, Write” with . Registration required
In the midst of chaotic change, environmental crisis, and much that feels unsettled/unsettling, how do we locate moments of joy and find space for creative wonder? In this workshop we will practice techniques for opening to inspiration, for locating the felt knowledge that comes from intuition, and leads, as Audre Lorde asserted, to our most radical and daring ideas. We will need these ideas, and our emotional and bodily knowledge, to reimagine the world in support of our collective survival.