Live Seminar Via Zoom Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025

The class will meet 7PM - 9:00PM 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.

Get to know Karen in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

How do you create a story that feels like it exists outside of the story's borders? The feeling of expansiveness in a story is a function of plot and time and perspective.

We will read stories by writers including Jhumpa Lahiri, Raymond Carver, Yoko Ogawa, John Cheever and Denis Johnson, looking at ways they create Octopus Moments in their work.

We will spend the first 45 minutes reading and discussing stories and the rest of the class will be devoted to in-class writing in which you can practice creating these moments in your own work.

You'll leave class with a better understanding of ways to filter time and perspective into a story. 

• Master “Octopus Moments” in Your Own Writing: Learn concrete techniques for injecting a sense of expansiveness into your stories by strategically harnessing plot, time, and perspective.
  
• Refine Your Analytical Eye: Deepen your ability to spot the subtle narrative moves in short fiction by authors such as Jhumpa Lahiri, Raymond Carver, Yoko Ogawa, John Cheever, and Denis Johnson, and adapt those moves to your own storytelling.
  
• Develop Multi-Layered Narratives: Gain tools to build stories that resonate beyond their borders, using specific craft strategies that help your fiction feel larger, richer, and more impactful.
  
• Take Home New Writing Habits: Through in-class writing exercises and guided critiques, leave with fresh approaches, prompts, and techniques you can immediately integrate into your creative process.

COURSE EXPECTATIONS: 

We'll review the different ways authors use octopus moments to build interiority in a story and then write 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. Students will leave the class with various techniques they can use to convey interiority through these new craft techniques.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

• Instructor: Karen E. Bender
  
• Live Seminar Via Zoom on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2025
• 7PM - 9PM EST
• Note: no recording will be available for this class.
• Tuition is $75.

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