by Writing Workshops Staff
2 hours ago
Emma Kress collects sentences. Not just any sentences, but what she calls Gateway Characterization Sentences: single lines where a writer manages to deliver an entire human being in a handful of words. Her latest acquisition, lifted from Kaliane Bradley's The Ministry of Time, describes a woman who puts the narrator in mind of an elegant alligator. That sustained, magpie-eyed attention to small craft moves is the same energy Emma brings to her own books and her teaching, and it's the engine inside both of her summer 2026 Zoom workshops at WritingWorkshops.com, the official education partner of Electric Literature.
Emma is the author of the young-adult sports and action thriller Dangerous Play (Macmillan), about a team of field hockey players who become vigilantes. She earned her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and was one of four finalists for New York State Teacher of the Year.
This summer she's teaching two one-day workshops back to back: How to Juggle the Big Cast on Sunday, July 12, where she shares the eleven strategies she developed managing the twenty-four-character ensemble of Dangerous Play, and How to Write Action and Sports Scenes That Keep Readers on the Edge on Sunday, August 9, where she shows fiction writers how to build a believable fight, a State Championship, or a getaway, even if you've never thrown a punch or laced up a skate. Both classes are anchored in the practice she calls her common denominator: side writing.
Here is our Meet the Teaching Artist Interview with Emma:
Writing Workshops: Hi, Emma. Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Emma Kress: I'm an author and a teacher, not always in that order. Things I'm good at: parallel parking, packing, talking in the accents of places I've lived, and listening. Things I'm bad at: make up, sleeping, cooking two things at once, and balance—both literally and figuratively. I wanted to write a book since I was 10. It took me until I was 46 to finally hold my book in my hands. I spent decades wanting to write but not actually writing, because I was too scared. Now, I can't imagine my life without it.
Writing Workshops: What's the thing you wish someone had taught you earlier in your writing life, and how does this class address that?
Emma Kress: Since I spent so long avoiding the writing chair, once I finally sat in it, I thought I'd be "wasting time" if I did character or scene sketches. If I wasn't spending my time writing the actual manuscript, then what was the point? Side writing was one of the greatest gifts a mentor ever gave me and I've relied on it ever since. It's also the common denominator in every workshop I teach.
"Side writing was one of the greatest gifts a mentor ever gave me and I've relied on it ever since. It's also the common denominator in every workshop I teach."
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?
Emma Kress: Side writing! Side writing is when the writer writes off to the side of their manuscript. (I prefer using an unlined notebook or large chart paper so that I can fully embrace the mess.) This writing is never meant to be in the actual manuscript, but instead, to inform, deepen, and direct it. In this course, we will do several side writing activities, and you'll walk away not only with those products, but also with a skill that will serve every writing project you tackle.
Writing Workshops: What's the last sentence you read that made you stop and reread it? Type it out for us.
Emma Kress: "She was a small, tough, wiry woman who put me in mind of an elegant alligator." -The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley
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?
Emma Kress: Just this week, I gave feedback to a student on a short story. When I first offered it, her face wrinkled up, closed in on itself, as if to say, Nope.
We did a mini-lesson on how to receive feedback: 1) Take it as a compliment. If the person doesn't think you can do it, they wouldn't bother with the feedback. They'd simply say, "That's fine." 2) Often (maybe mostly), feedback is wrong. But always, feedback is a neon sign saying, "something here isn't working." And while the feedback-giver may have the wrong fix, it's your job to dig for the right one.
I walked away to help someone else. She returned to her computer.
Time ticked. At the end of the class, she bounced toward me. "I changed so much. You can't even imagine. I changed EVERYTHING." She beamed.
"Do you like it?" I asked.
"So much better. It's so much better."
I smiled. Other writers looked on; they wanted in.
"I love it."
I'm sure I was wrong. (Most editorial advice is.) But, the cool thing? She figured out how to make it right on her own. That's where the happiness lives, I think.
Writing Workshops: What's a craft move you're slightly obsessed with right now? Not a big concept, but a small, specific technique.
Emma Kress: I collect what I call "Gateway Characterization Sentences." These are single sentences (or very short) moments where you get a real sense of a full character even in just a few lines. The sentence I gave you above was my latest entry. But I have more!
"Lincoln sounded high-strung and full of anticipation, as if he only ever expected good news after the beep." Five Tuesdays, by Lily King
"Sylvie in a house was more or less like a mermaid in a ship's cabin." Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson
"If Jimmy-George from high school knew how to look at a person, Duke knew how to make a person look at him." Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett
"You just wondered if I was the kind of woman who attracts criminals the way other women attract alcoholics or sadists." Heartburn, by Nora Ephron
"Everything Sophie said, as a rule, was about three degrees too vivacious." Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler
Aren't you glad you asked? Don't you want to start a collection now, too?
If a single sentence can deliver a whole character, imagine what eleven strategies can do for the twelve, fifteen, twenty-four people in your novel. Spend a Sunday with Emma learning how to make every member of your ensemble distinct on the page.
Enroll in How to Juggle the Big Cast →Writing Workshops: What's a book you press into people's hands that has nothing to do with writing craft?
Emma Kress: But, but you've told me nothing about the person who will read it! How will I choose? A teen who wants to escape into a fully-realized world that isn't ours? Holly Black's White Cat. A middle-aged woman who feels her life slipping by? Emma Straub's This Time Tomorrow. A middle-aged woman who needs to laugh along with her tears? Alison Espach's The Wedding People. Someone (of any age) who wants to to laugh, dig into the meaning of stories, and the evils of censorship? Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories. As a book-lover, I love nothing more than matching a friend with a just-right book. A good matchmaker has to take into account not just the book, but the hands receiving it.
Writing Workshops: What's the worst writing advice that sounds smart?
Emma Kress: Write what you know. It's well-meaning but flawed advice that new writers can take too literally. Perhaps they don't have the money/time/ability to do all that's required of them to "know" everything that needs to happen in the sort of book they want to write. Laura Hillenbrand suffers from a debilitating case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and she barely left her house when she wrote her critically acclaimed books filled with vibrant action scenes and far-off places.
You're a writer. That means you love to learn. You love to read. And, your imagination is your superpower. What you don't know today, does not define what you know tomorrow. Jump in.
Writing Workshops: Finish this sentence: "Most writing classes won't tell you this, but..."
Emma Kress: You can't do everything at once and you definitely can't aim for perfection with all the things in the same stroke. That's the magic of revision. You get to be perfectionistic about just one thing with every pass.
"You can't do everything at once and you definitely can't aim for perfection with all the things in the same stroke. That's the magic of revision. You get to be perfectionistic about just one thing with every pass."
Writing Workshops: Who was your first literary crush?
Emma Kress: Grover in There's a Monster at the End of This Book
Writing Workshops: What's your teaching vibe, in one sentence, not a paragraph?
Emma Kress: Cheerleader and Challenger
Writing Workshops: What would your students be surprised to learn about you?
Emma Kress: You'll never catch me at karaoke, but I'll lip sync all day long.
From Field Hockey Vigilantes to State Championship Stakes
Cheerleader and Challenger is exactly the right framing for a teacher whose debut novel features a team of girls who refuse to be told their sport, their bodies, or their stories are anyone else's territory. The action and sports scenes in Dangerous Play are the work of a writer who knows that physical struggle on the page demands the same care as any other kind: clear motivation, real stakes, language that moves at the speed of the body. If you've ever wanted to write a fight, a championship game, a chase, a high-speed escape, or any scene where the body has to carry the meaning, this August class is built for that exact problem.
Spend an afternoon with Emma learning how to write a believable fistfight, a State Championship, or a getaway, with film clips, live sports moments, and writing sprints to practice the craft in real time.
Save Your Seat in Action and Sports Scenes →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.
