“...A short story is like a kiss in the dark from a stranger." - Stephen King
"When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you." - George Saunders
Whole worlds, lives, relationships, experiences can be held in the few slight pages of the short story form. But how? What do we tell, what do we leave out? Where do we start, how do we end? In this workshop, we will study a variety of short story elements and concerns (structure, form, passage of time, entry points, promises, endings, "aboutness," discovery, and, and, and) through reading published models and writing activities. Whether you are writing new or revising, this session will give you strategies for finding your way.
Patricia Ann McNair writes fiction and nonfiction. The Temple of Air (stories), won Southern Illinois University Devil’s Kitchen Readers Award, Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year, and was a finalist for Society of Midland Authors Adult Fiction Award. And These Are The Good Times (essays), was a Montaigne Medal finalist. Named as a Writer to Watch by the Guild Literary Complex, McNair directs Mining for Story, a writers’ retreat in Wisconsin. She is the director of undergraduate creative writing programs at Columbia College Chicago, and is on the graduate faculty there. McNair was nominated for the Carnegie Foundation’s U.S. Professor of the Year.
9-9:30 Registration and Socializing
9:30-12 Program
