CLASSES
Magical Realism: Keeping it Real While Writing the Surreal
Saturday, October 8, 2022
2 - 4 pm Central
via Zoom
taught by Ryan Habermeyer
Click here to register for this free event.
Writers of all skill levels welcome!
We want everyone to have access to literary arts education, but we also want to compensate our instructors for the important and innovative work they do. If you are able, we appreciate a suggested donation of $15-25 for this class.
About this class:
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” So begins Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, a quintessential story fusing together the ordinary with the extraordinary, the mundane with the fantastical. This magical realist style is ubiquitous in contemporary fiction: an angel falls out of the sky and creates chaos in a small town (Gabriel Garcia Marquez); women in a factory transform into silkworms (Karen Russell); a mother breathes life into her child’s origami (Ken Liu); and a woman’s lover experiences reverse evolution (Aimee Bender). But how do you make the implausible feel believable? How do you indulge in wild imagination without getting carried away? In this class we’ll explore the craft of magical realism. We’ll discuss strategies and techniques for disrupting audience expectations while balancing realism with fantasy. We’ll examine common pitfalls of speculative writing and how to develop the logic of weird storytelling with powerful emotional effects.
This class is ideal for:
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Writers interested in different types of fantasy writing: surrealism, slipstream, new fabulism, and science fiction
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Writers who want to experiment with form and style and voice in speculative storytelling
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Writers who want to learn the basics of world-building in small narrative spaces
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Writers who want to weave myth, folklore, and fairytales into their writing
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Writers who want prompts that provoke and inspire their imaginations
About This Instructor:
Ryan Habermeyer is a creative writer and scholar. His stories and essays have appeared in more than sixty literary journals and he is the author of the prize-winning short story collection, The Science of Lost Futures (BoA 2018). He has published academic articles on the cultural history and social politics of global fairy tales and lectured nationally and internationally on the genre. He is Associate Professor of creative writing and literature at Salisbury University.
Beg, Borrow, and Steal: Defining Voice and Tone in Your Poetry
Saturday, November 10, 2022
2 - 4 pm Central
via Zoom
taught by Dr. Colin Pope
Click here to register for this free event.
Writers of all skill levels welcome!
We want everyone to have access to literary arts education, but we also want to compensate our instructors for the important and innovative work they do. If you are able, we appreciate a suggested donation of $15-25 for this class.
About this class:
One of the most difficult aspects of writing poetry is defining "voice," a quality often discussed as both utterly necessary for a poem's success and completely ineffable to its creation. But what do we mean when we say "voice," exactly? What about "tone?" How do each of these operate within a poem? And, most importantly, what's the difference between these two terms, which are frequently used interchangeably when people discuss poetry? In this workshop, we will outline some concrete guidelines for defining the voice and tone of a poem, both during our reading of others' works and during the making of our own. We'll look at a variety of poems to help us on the way, and then we'll have fun practicing in our own vocal and tonal registers.
This class is ideal for:
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poets who want help developing their voice in poetry
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poets looking to increase their tonal range
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poets who want to learn how to define voice and tone in their own work and in others'
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poets who what some playful prompts to jump-start new poems
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poets who'd like support and encouragement in an inclusive community
About This Instructor:
Colin Pope is the author of Why I Didn’t Go to Your Funeral (Tolsun Books, 2019) and the forthcoming collection Prayer Book for the New Heretic (NYQ Books). Poems, essays, and criticism have appeared in journals and publications such as The Kenyon Review, Slate, The Gettysburg Review, West Branch, AGNI, Ninth Letter, Third Coast, Pleiades, Willow Springs, Best New Poets, and others. He is on the board of the People’s Poetry Festival.
