5 Sessions: Wednesday, July 10, 17, 24, 31, August 7
7:00-9:00pm ET
Elissa Schappell

Elissa Schappell has taught in the MFA Creative Writing Programs at Columbia and NYU, was a co-founder and Editor-at-Large at Tin House, have published two books of fiction, Blueprints for Building Better Girls and Use Me, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award, numerous short stories, interviews, essays and book reviews, and co-edited two critically acclaimed anthologies.

This is a generative workshop that encourages writers to take risks and experiment with non-traditional narrative structures. The final class will provide writers the opportunity to have their work critiqued in a craft-based workshop designed to help the writer edit their story.

We will be looking at stories that eschew the conventional means of storytelling in favor of forms that afford the writer the distance to explore material that might be too hot, too political or personal to write about head on. Schappell will give writing exercises designed to help students access their material, and the blueprints needed to construct new stories. Each week students will generate new work, and at the end pick one new story to workshop in the last session.

Workshop Highlights:

• Generate new material inspired by unconventionally structured stories

• Draft a new story

• Workshop the new story