Workshops
“Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.” - Alice Munro
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In our early drafts, we writers often create sentences and scenes that are only doing one thing at once. At times words, paragraphs, and even whole stories seem to have only one obvious purpose, which becomes clear all too quickly. Readers quickly guess what we’re trying to do and become bored. And in fact, we as writers become a bit bored too. In other words, we’re being predictable.
Our goal in this fiction workshop is to take a close look at our work and consider strategies to develop originality, complexity, efficiency, and texture in our writing. The ultimate purpose? To hone each writer’s unique voice. During class time, in addition to peer review, we’ll look at examples from published work and do exercises to build our writing muscles for the long haul. You’ll leave this workshop with ideas for the work you’ve submitted as well as skills to use for any work of fiction you’ll create in the future.
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Instructor: Aaron Hamburger
Aaron Hamburger is the author of a story collection titled THE VIEW FROM STALIN’S HEAD which was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and nominated for a Violet Quill Award. He has also written three novels: FAITH FOR BEGINNERS, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, NIRVANA IS HERE, winner of a Bronze Medal from the 2019 Foreword Reviews Indies Book Awards, and HOTEL CUBA, due out from Harper Perennial in May 2023.
His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, The Village Voice, Tin House, Michigan Quarterly Review, Subtropics, Crazyhorse, Boulevard, Poets & Writers, Tablet, O, the Oprah Magazine, and many others. He has also won fellowships from Yaddo, Djerassi, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation.
He has taught creative writing at Columbia University, the George Washington University, New York University, Brooklyn College, and the Stonecoast MFA Program.
