Fiction Writing Lessons from Disobedient Masters with Jenny Shank

If you've taken some writing classes, you've discovered general rules writers often follow as short cuts toward crafting a decent story or scene. But what if you're aiming for an extraordinary story or scene? That's when we need to look to some disobedient masters for inspiration, writers such as Alice Munro, Donna Tartt, and Zadie Smith, who often tell instead of show, switch perspectives within a short space, indulge in long stretches of narration with no action, write what they don't know, or use fractured or backward timelines. We'll discuss a few disobedient short stories and novel excerpts (which you'll read beforehand), analyze how these writers quickly develop characters and experiment with time, complete some in-class writing exercises and return to our own fiction writing refreshed, invigorated and as disobedient a Nobel Prize-winning Canadian. This class requires students to read four stories before we meet.

Jenny Shank grew up in Denver, Colorado, and earned degrees from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Colorado. Her novel The Ringer (The Permanent Press, 2011) won the High Plains Book Award in fiction, was a finalist for the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association's Reading the West Book Awards, was a Tattered Cover Book Store Summer Reading 2011 selection, and was a finalist for the Book Pipeline competition. One of her stories was listed among the "Notable Essays of the Year" in the Best American Essays and two of her stories were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She won writing awards from the Center of the American West, the Montana Committee for the Humanities, SouthWest Writers, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She has taught creative writing at the University of Colorado, the Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and the Boulder Writing Studio, and she is on the faculty of the Mile High MFA at Regis University in Denver. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her husband, daughter, and son.

Price: $60
Member Discount Program Price: $50
Click here to pay and complete registration: http://www.coloradowritingschool.com/upcoming-classes.html