As writers, it is essential that we trust and explore the many possibilities of our imaginings. This workshop will push us past what we think we know about the narratives we are making and help us to expand the parameters of our stories. With particular attention to endings (of characters, situations, and stories), we will study published models and write our way down alternate roads. During the workshop, it can be helpful to have access to one’s own work-in-progress, but we will try new writing as well.
Patricia Ann McNair’s short story collection, Responsible Adults, was named a Distinguished Favorite by the Independent Press Awards. The Temple of Air (stories) received Chicago Writers Association’s Book of the Year and other honors. Her collection of essays, And These Are the Good Times, was a Montaigne Medal Finalist for Most Thought-Provoking Book of the Year. McNair’s fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in Barrelhouse, American Fiction: Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers, Hypertext Review, LitHub, River Teeth, Fourth Genre, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, and other publications. She was named to Chicago’s NewCity Lit 50 list, and A Writer to Watch by Chicago’s Guild Literary Complex. McNair is associate professor emerita in Creative Writing at Columbia College Chicago, where she received the Excellence in Teaching Award, and was nominated for the U.S. Carnegie Professor of the Year. She directs the Interlochen College of Creative Arts Writers Retreat and the Shake Rag Alley Mining for Story Writing Retreat. McNair lives in Tucson with her husband, visual artist Philip Hartigan.
