Five Ways of Looking at Short Fiction: Session 1

March 4, 7:00 p.m. 

Maps of the Mind: How I Build Place in Fiction / Jen Julian

Russian short story writer Anton Chekhov famously said, “Living images create thought. It is not the thought which creates the image.” These words I’ve come to understand as the foundation for rich, textured stories. You start with the tangible, the specific, the remembered, and build the story from the ground up. In this seminar, I’ll talk about how physical place can be used in tandem with character, plot, and tension to make fiction come alive. I’ll also share a mapmaking technique, which I have used to help me develop towns, neighborhoods, and even characters’ homes, drawing these spaces to be more distinctive and convincing. Jen Julian won the 2018 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction with her debut story collection Earthly Delights and Other Apocalypses . She is a 2016 Clarion alumna with a PhD in English from the University of Missouri, Columbia, and an MFA in Fiction from UNC Greensboro. Her short stories and essays have appeared or are upcoming in TriQuarterly, Beecher’s Magazine, Greensboro Review, The Chattahoochee Review, and North Carolina Literary Review, among other places.

Five Ways of Looking at Short Fiction presents experts of the short story form published by NC small press, Press 53. In this series you'll learn about place, detail, and character as well as advice on revision and submission.

Individual workshops are $25. The series of 5 is $100.

Workshops are limited to twelve participants and are interactive, so you'll have a chance to ask questions.

All take place online. Once you register, you'll be sent a code for signing in and a copy of a book by your workshop leader.