Danielle Lazarin

Close Encounters: Writing Intimacy and Connection

at The Center for Fiction

Tuesdays, January 6th-February 24th
7-9PM EST, on Zoom

$545

In this workshop, students will tackle the sometimes uncomfortable but always essential foundation of fiction: writing intimacy and relationships. Whether portraying the bonds between strangers, the complexity of friendship, physical intimacy, the connection between human and animal, or the ways we fight, how can we telegraph the nuance of character relationships with the dynamism it deserves, sacrificing neither specificity or plot? What does it really mean to be intimate, to know (or not know) someone, and how do we express that knowing in story?

We’ll use short stories and novel excerpts to look closely at the craft of character engagement, seeing what dials can be turned to tell the stories of these relationships with clarity, precision, and power. Students will experiment with different approaches to this task in their own work, concentrating on a scene level, learning how to make choices to write the fraught spaces of human relationships with honesty and vulnerability without being saccharine, evasive, or falling into cliches. In addition to weekly generative work, each student will have the opportunity to workshop scenes. Great for writers already entrenched in larger projects or those just getting started.

Envisioning Your Short Story Collection

with Writing CoLab
Enrollment opens January 1st

Ever wonder if your numerous short stories are a collection, and what to do with them if you think they could be with a little (or a lot of) effort? How do you know if stories belong together, what might be missing to unify them, or how to order, talk about, and ultimately sell them as a cohesive book?

In this two-hour seminar, I’ll walk you through the experience of conceptualizing and completing a short story collection that’s ready for agents and editors. We’ll discuss basics like how many stories make a collection, if you really need to publish in literary magazines before you get an agent, and not-so-basics like discovering and strengthening thematic connections between stories, and the uncomfortable question of whether or not story collections sell.

Writers in this course will complete some brief assessments of their existing material and leave with a clear sense of the practical steps and creative process involved in making a dream of a story collection into a marketable manuscript ready for agents and editors. There will be ample time for q&a at the end of the session, which will be recorded and available asynchronously for a month after the session.