by Writing Workshops Staff
50 minutes ago
Maureen Aitken is the author of The Patron Saint of Lost Girls, a story collection that earned a Kirkus star and won the Nilsen Prize and the Foreword Review INDIE Gold Prize for General Fiction, and she believes place and time do more than decorate a scene. They put pressure on it.
That conviction drives Flash Fiction Writing Workshop: Intensifying Flash Fiction Through Time and Place, a two-hour live seminar she is teaching on Tuesday, November 10, at WritingWorkshops.com, the official education partner of Electric Literature.
Working from John Cheever's "Reunion," Jaquira Díaz's "Beach City," and George Saunders's "Sticks," students will learn how a single afternoon can compress an entire father-son relationship, how a well-rendered setting can carry nostalgia and dread, and how a strange family ritual can bend time. Guided prompts mean you'll leave with two new flash drafts, whether they stand alone or feed a story or novel already underway.
Aitken, whose stories have appeared in Prairie Schooner, The Missouri Review, and New Letters, has taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota. She calls her teaching gentle but serious about revision. Below, she talks about the worst writing advice that sounds smart, the last line she can't shake, and why you don't have to take every note you're given.
Here is our Meet the Teaching Artist Interview with Maureen:
Writing Workshops: Hi, Maureen. Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Maureen Aitken: I'm Maureen Aitken, writer, and award-winning writing instructor. I'm thrilled to be joining the team with what I think is one of the most important elements of fiction, the flash form.
I love what it can do for writers. It can inspire stand-alone pieces, stories, or novels. I've used this method for my own work. It helped me publish about 20 short stories, and a collection of stories that earned Kirkus Star and won the Foreword Review INDIE Gold Prize for General Fiction.
My other passion is writing instruction. It is inspiring to watch writers improve over the course.
I live in the Midwest, but I love stories from all over. How we see these places, and how our language reflects them, are so telling of who we are and what we value.
Writing Workshops: What's the thing you wish someone had taught you earlier in your writing life, and how does this class address that?
Maureen Aitken: I wish I'd shared more of my work early on. I wrote alone for a while, not showing work to anyone. When I did enter into my first writing workshop, I noticed how the instructor guided people toward their best writing. That is why my teaching focuses on the strengths of the work first. What is unique about a writer's piece? What is powerful? Then we can talk about what could change. But it's our duty to honor the writer's unique voice first. We don't need cookie-cutter strategies. We need your unique story.
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?
Maureen Aitken: One skill I share is focusing on the character's dramatic need. What does the character want and how does someone or something stand in the way?
"Write what you know. If you know the whole story, there is nothing to say. You are there to discover deeper parts of a story, parts you don't yet understand."
Writing Workshops: What's the last sentence you read that made you stop and reread it? Type it out for us.
Maureen Aitken: For novels, it is the last line in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. "Who knows but that on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?" By the time I got to the end of this revolutionary novel, this last sentence gutted me for a long time.
For short stories, there are many, but a classic story, "Reunion" by John Cheever has a great one: "'Goodbye, Daddy,' I said, and I went down the stairs and got my train, and that was the last time I saw my father."
It's part of a circular narrative where the last line revisits the first. It's heartbreaking. It will be part of the work we consider in my class.
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?
Maureen Aitken: I can give you two examples.
1. Writers often don't know what is working in a piece. It can be surprising to note what is special about the voice or the place, or the time. When a writer can see what is working, fixing the issues are so much easier because they recognize the gift of the story.
2. The other is structure. I've had a few moments where I was teaching a class and I asked everyone to tell us where the story really begins. Sometimes it is the second paragraph, sometimes it's the last one. But it is so fun to see a writer's eyes light up, because they see it for themselves.
Writing Workshops: What's a craft move you're slightly obsessed with right now? Not a big concept: a small, specific technique.
Maureen Aitken: I'm obsessed by how much place propels plot. If a character gets lost in a forest or in a vacant building, the story difference is huge, and yet both contain serious and distinct dangers.
The forest or the vacant building? Spend an evening with Maureen learning how place and time put pressure on your characters, and leave with two new flash drafts.
Enroll in Flash Fiction: Place & Time →Writing Workshops: What's a book you press into people's hands that has nothing to do with writing craft?
Maureen Aitken: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante is gorgeous. My Brilliant Friend is part of four books. I read them this I spring and I am still thinking about the characters.
Writing Workshops: What's the worst writing advice that sounds smart?
Maureen Aitken: Write what you know. If you know the whole story, there is nothing to say. You are there to discover deeper parts of a story, parts you don't yet understand. That is the gift of writing.
Writing Workshops: Finish this sentence: "Most writing classes won't tell you this, but..."
Maureen Aitken: Most writing classes won't tell you this, but you don't have to take all of the advice. If you find the two or three people with advice that resonates, that is a successful session. All of the comments matter, but not all will help. You are the steward of your story. It's your job to guide it home with the advice that will get it there.
Writing Workshops: Who was your first literary crush?
Maureen Aitken: A Christmas Carol. As ghosts go, Marley has a lot of range.
"You are the steward of your story. It's your job to guide it home with the advice that will get it there."
Writing Workshops: What's your teaching vibe? One sentence, not a paragraph.
Maureen Aitken: Gentle, but I am about revision, so I'm going into what works then giving lots of notes.
Writing Workshops: What would your students be surprised to learn about you?
Maureen Aitken: I write screenplays with a friend. We won some awards for a short and we are now working on a full-length project. It is wonderful to collaborate and it helps my fiction.
Collaboration runs through everything Maureen says, from co-writing screenplays to reading a draft for what already works before touching what doesn't. That spirit shapes her seminar: two hours of close reading, generative prompts, and live feedback, built on the idea that place and time can intensify a story more than any plot twist. Whether you write flash or want to sharpen a single moment inside a novel, join her on November 10 in Flash Fiction Writing Workshop: Intensifying Flash Fiction Through Time and Place, and find out where your story really begins.
Three master flash pieces, two new drafts, and one evening with Maureen Aitken. Join us live on Zoom, Tuesday, November 10, 6:00 to 8:00 PM ET.
Save Your Seat in Flash Fiction: Place & Time →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.
