Live Seminar Via Zoom Saturday, July 29th, 2023

Class will meet 12PM - 5:00PM EST

Taught by Karen E. Bender, author of two collections; Refund, which was a Finalist for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Story Prize, and Longlisted for the Story prize, and The New Order, which was Longlisted for the Story prize. A new collection is forthcoming. Her novels are Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, The Yale Review, The Harvard Review, Story, Guernica, and others, have been reprinted in Best American Short Stories and Best American Mystery stories and won three Pushcart prizes.

In this day-long generative workshop for writers of all levels, we'll read openings to stories by authors including Raymond Carver, Jamaica Kincaid, Miranda July, Jhumpa Lahiri, and more.

We’ll work to identify different types of openings in an effort to understand how writers create urgency that carries the reader through a short story or a longer work of fiction. Using carefully constructed writing exercises, we’ll practice these different types of openings in class, with the hopes of honing our ability to write effective beginnings that precisely suit the stories we want to tell.

Writers will leave with several new story starts to use as launchpads for future writing, as well as the ability to think more strategically about how the beginnings they may have already written are serving their work.

• Understand how beginnings affect the pacing of stories.
• Several new story beginnings to use as the inspiration for future drafts.
• Think strategically about past drafts and learn how to make your previous beginnings more dynamic 

COURSE EXPECTATIONS: 

We'll be going over the different types of story openings in class, and then writing generative exercises to practice these methods. Students should come to class ready to write and will have opportunities to share work if they would like. They will leave the class with a variety of story openings, and an understanding of a variety of techniques a writer can use to open a story.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Karen E. Bender
  
• Live Seminar Via Zoom on Saturday, July 29th, 2023
• 12PM - 5PM EST
• **Note: no recording will be available for this class.**

Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this seminar.

Instructor Karen E. Bender is the author of two collections; Refund, which was a Finalist for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Story Prize, and Longlisted for the Story prize, and The New Order, which was Longlisted for the Story prize. A new collection is forthcoming. Her novels are Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, The Yale Review, The Harvard Review, Story, Guernica, and others, have been reprinted in Best American Short Stories and Best American Mystery stories and won three Pushcart prizes. Her work has been read at the Selected Shorts program at Symphony Space and on Levar Burton Reads, She has taught for many highly regarded MFA programs, including the University of Iowa, Hollins University, and Warren Wilson College and currently teaches for the MFA Programs at SUNY Stony Brook and Alma College. Visit her website here.