SESSION: How Interviews Can Fuel Your Book Project

Interviews are a powerful tool that can fuel both nonfiction and fiction. They can prove especially transformative when—as in the case of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko and Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers—the authors extensively interviewed a variety of people for novels set in times and places outside of their own direct experience. In this session, former Fortune reporter Shalene Gupta will walk through how to effectively interview people, from figuring out who to talk to, to preparing for the interview, to getting the most out of the discussion, and finally organizing your notes to set yourself up for writing success.

SESSION: The Motivated Writer

If you’re the rare writer who hasn’t ever wrestled with motivation, confidence, and time-management skills, then stop reading right now. But if you’ve had trouble sitting down at the desk, or staying there, or concentrating on your own words, or if you’ve been struck by a bad case of the impostor complex, then this class is for you. You’ll spend the session learning about motivation-boosting techniques every writer can borrow from a seemingly unlikely source: sports! No matter what your experience with exercise, you’ll learn how to use an athlete’s tools, like interval training, periodization, and the concept of training zones, to help you embark on and complete your writing project. No need for sweats and a water bottle. We’ll spend the time in a combination of informal lecture and discussion, and you’ll leave the session with a plan for how to accomplish your short-term and long-term goals.

SESSION: Writing While Multilingual: How to Leverage Your Languages for Strong Fiction

The circumstances of our growing up, colonization, immigration, and belonging versus otherness all influence how we feel about and use our languages. We will explore how our relationships with our languages influence what and how we write, and address the challenges of incorporating elements of foreign languages and cultures in fiction for audiences who are not familiar with them. Using excerpts by writers such as Aleksandar Hemon, Oscar Casares, Edwige Danticat, and Amitav Ghosh, we will identify some practical techniques for when and how to use different languages to craft the strongest, truest fiction.

CO-PRESENTER: Anjali Mitter Duva

SESSION: Food Writing Across Genres

We live in a world of “foodie” culture, where culinary adventurers are looking for interesting new journeys for their taste buds. You can take advantage of this trend in your own writing, bringing food onto the page in compelling, descriptive ways that can evoke strong emotions in your readers, whether or not food is a central theme in your writing. Food is an important part of our lives—in our families, our friendships, our relationships, our religions, and even our politics. In this workshop you’ll see how the masters write about food and try your hand at developing your own delicious (or disgusting!) scenes. This session is appropriate for writers of all genres and explores work by Günter Grass, Charles M. Blow, Min Jin Lee, Ramin Ganeshram, Marjan Kamali, Jenna Blum, Charlie Holmberg, and others.

SESSION: When Science Is Your Main Character

In an increasingly science-suspicious world, many writers want to incorporate scientific material into their fiction. But doing so presents some unique challenges.

In this session, we'll discuss approaches to writing fiction about science. How—in a fictional world—might we adhere to scientific fact? How can we make science central to our novels' conditions and conflict? How can we make the science work in the plot without it seeming like dull exposition? We'll examine excerpts from writers like Delia Owens, Andrea Barrett, Ted Chiang, and N.K. Jemisin to discover the choices they've made in diction, exposition, and science-as-plot-point. Considering the nation’s recent experience, we'll discuss the widespread resistance to vaccination as well as the resistance of some in the dominant culture to the experience of LGBTQ+ people in light of what science reveals about human sexuality. We will explore how these might be developed as a challenge or obstacle to be considered in narrative. Climate change is also a greater factor in the everyday lives of people and cannot be ignored without consequence. This session will be especially useful for anyone writing about characters who are scientists or researchers—or characters fighting resistance to facts that pose a threat to their lives or those of their loved ones.

CO-PRESENTER: Rebecca Bratten Weiss