by Writing Workshops Staff
35 minutes ago
Conventional storytelling runs on a single engine: and then, and then, and then. We follow a thread from one event to the next, trusting the writer to carry us forward. The fragmented essay throws that engine out. In its place, Sophia Hembeck hears a different rhythm: and now this. And now that. And now what?
Hembeck, a bilingual writer and visual artist based in Edinburgh, has built three books of lyrical essays around exactly this kind of attention. In Unhinged in Your Notes App: An Introduction to the Fragmented Essay, her six-week online workshop at WritingWorkshops.com, the official education partner of Electric Literature, she teaches writers to trust the spaces between fragments instead of rushing to fill them.
Across six Saturday sessions on Google Meet, you will learn to arrange fragments through juxtaposition, white space, repetition, and sequencing so that disconnected pieces begin to speak to one another. You will build a daily practice of noticing that turns ordinary moments into raw material. And you will leave with one or two complete fragmented essays, plus written feedback from Hembeck on your final submission.
What makes the class unusual is its underlying argument: that leaving gaps is an act of trust in your reader. The writers who let something stay a puzzle, Hembeck believes, are the ones who attract readers who love figuring things out.
Here is our Meet the Teaching Artist Interview with Sophia:
Writing Workshops: Hi, Sophia. Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Sophia Hembeck: I'm a bilingual writer and artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Seven years ago I decided to move to Edinburgh from Berlin on a whim and like so many decisions that are utterly bizarre to others: it was the best thing I've ever done for myself.
Writing Workshops: What's the thing you wish someone had taught you earlier in your writing life, and how does this class address that?
Sophia Hembeck: That it's more important to have something to say than how you say it. Particularly when it comes to essay writing, where the whole point is to lay open your mind. I guess a part of this class is about trusting that we all have something inside of us that wants to connect with the outside world, with the reader.
Writing Workshops: If a student walks away from this class with one skill or shift in their writing they didn't have before, what is it?
Sophia Hembeck: A story in its most basic form is the continuous answer to the question: and then?
And then, and then, and then. The fragmented essay on the other hand seems to say: and now this! And now that! And now what?
Its form is all about trying to make connections, trying to make sense in collaboration with the reader. Of course, it's not just chaos. Life is. Writing isn't. Yet, we need the reader to fill in the gaps for us, which really is about trust. The neurotic writer will try to control everything, over-explain, over-communicate. So my goal is that through this class students begin to trust themselves more, trust that if they leave gaps in their essays, in their thoughts, if they let something be a fragment, let something be a bit of a puzzle, that it will attract readers who find joy in figuring things out. And if you think about it: most people do.
"A story in its most basic form is the continuous answer to the question: and then? ... The fragmented essay on the other hand seems to say: and now this! And now that! And now what?"
Writing Workshops: What's the last sentence you read that made you stop and reread it? Type it out for us.
Sophia Hembeck: "To say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays." From Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream. It's just exactly where I am right now.
Writing Workshops: Describe a moment in a workshop, one you were teaching or one you took as a student, where something clicked for someone. What happened?
Sophia Hembeck: A few weeks ago, I was invited to a podcast, and I found myself saying something like: "The most important thing when you're writing is to be vulnerable, to know yourself, and to open up and share those things you believe to be true. Everything else is secondary. A text without any meaning, any risk of showing yourself is just decorative." I still wonder if I actually mean that. Perhaps it is a little bit more complex. Perhaps what I meant to say was, that is where we start: a place of exploration and curiosity. Especially at the beginning of a career, and that is where one most likely will join a writing workshop or enroll in a creative writing MFA. First you need to have time to build confidence, to build a routine, because there's no point in pruning when you can't actually distinguish between what's a seedling and what's a weed. They'll look the same.
Writing Workshops: What's a craft move you're slightly obsessed with right now? Not a big concept, but a small, specific technique.
Sophia Hembeck: Forcing myself to think of ten different ways to begin an essay. It's really allowing you to be less attached to a certain perspective or entry point and often creates great sentences that can be sprinkled in later on as well.
Want a toolkit of small, specific techniques like this one, exercises that loosen your grip and free up the work? That is the heart of this six-week workshop.
Enroll in the Fragmented Essay Workshop →Writing Workshops: What's a book you press into people's hands that has nothing to do with writing craft?
Sophia Hembeck: Liars by Sarah Manguso. The number of sentences I underlined and photos of pages that I sent to my friends, basically saying: see? see!? I don't think I've ever seen a writer dissect a toxic heterosexual marriage better.
Writing Workshops: What's the worst writing advice that sounds smart?
Sophia Hembeck: "To write every day and keep a word count." I have ruined my natural flow state over fixating on numbers for years. It is something I am still recovering from. It's kind of like what dieting does to your relationship with food.
"I have ruined my natural flow state over fixating on numbers for years. It is something I am still recovering from. It's kind of like what dieting does to your relationship with food."
Writing Workshops: Finish this sentence: "Most writing classes won't tell you this, but..."
Sophia Hembeck: It's really up to you how much you get out of it.
Writing Workshops: Who was your first literary crush?
Sophia Hembeck: I couldn't actually tell you who my first literary crush was, but I always had this sense that I am less alone when I'm reading. That, for instance, when I read the diaries of Samuel Beckett at University and his obsession with death, his fears, and all that: I felt so grateful. That he wrote it down. That he made me feel like I'm not the only one with these thoughts. It's always been the reason why I became a writer in the first place.
Writing Workshops: What's your teaching vibe, in one sentence, not a paragraph?
Sophia Hembeck: It will definitely feel a little bit like therapy. Breakthroughs and all.
Writing Workshops: What would your students be surprised to learn about you?
Sophia Hembeck: That I don't use my beautiful antique bureau desk but always have to write in my bed. It's giving upright croissant and one day my back will have its revenge but not yet!
There is something fitting about a teacher of the fragmented essay who writes from bed instead of her antique desk: the good material rarely arrives where we expect it. If you are ready to slow down, pay closer attention, and discover the essays hiding inside your own everyday moments, consider this your invitation. Over six weeks you will write real fragments, arrange them into finished pieces, and get Hembeck's eyes on your work. Bring your curiosity and your notes app. The rest you will build together.
Six weeks. One supportive group. One or two finished essays with Sophia's written feedback. Spots are limited, so claim yours while you can.
Save Your Seat in the Fragmented Essay Workshop →WritingWorkshops.com is an independent, artist-run creative writing school and the official education partner of Electric Literature. Since 2016, we've helped writers strengthen their voice, develop a greater understanding of craft, and forge a path to publication.
