Alice Munro - Mystery and Memory
Fiction and Nonfiction Workshops8 PM Tuesday, January 30, February 6, 20, 278 PM Thursday, February 1, 8, 22, 29Alice Munro - Mystery and Memory course and Fiction and Nonfiction Workshops will begin on Tuesday, January 30th. There will be Tuesday and Thursday sections, and you may take the class as a reading class or a writing workshop. We will take a week off to celebrate Spring Festival.In this 4-week class, we will read stories from Alice Munro’s mid-to-late career and learn how to plant and sustain the mystery in a story, how to create backstories from the memories of the characters, how to write arresting flashbacks, how to construct a story that take place over a long period, how to control the pace of time throughout the story, among other tools of the trade. Munro is the master of the short story form, for which she has won numerous prizes, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. In preparation for this course, I’ve read over 70 of Alice Munro’s stories and made it my goal to read every single one of her 170 stories this year. As I read, I have two spreadsheets going. One is for publishing information, themes, and surprises, as well as my personal notes about the stories. The other helps me keep track of appearances of literary personage (mythical and otherwise), songs and dances, silk and cashmere, affairs, deaths, murders, and whiskey drinking cats (so far only 1).Munro’s stories are about people, they are about life. For this very reason they appeal to us. We’ve had the same infatuations, heartbreaks, disappointments, losses, grief, and worries about money, our parents, and lovers. But this is also the reason why we often do not see the structure, the complexity, and the meticulous selection of details in her stories. Alice Munro - Mystery and Memory course will give us the opportunity to enjoy the stories and study them, to appreciate their content as well as construction, and to practice all that we learn from Munro in our own writing. Please contact me to sign up for the classes. I promise you will not be disappointed either with the stories or the company. Sign up now! There’s been a few early birds from old students and excited newcomers, and class size is limited.
No time to take classes in February? Click here to see the Class Calendar for the first half of 2024.
*
If you prefer to take a class with me before making your decision whether or not to sign up, join me for the next OPEN CLASS on Thursday, January 25, 2024, at 8PM. All information you need will be available in a couple of days!
Follow The Ways of Black Ink
For free writing resources, information and announcements about reading and writing classes, and that random poem. https://waysofblackink.wordpress.com/