Orlando Word Lab


Details
This is a writing workshop that will focus on learning a new technique or method each month. A guest speaker will share a sample of their work and then give a writing prompt for everyone to follow.
We'll all write for 30 minutes, and then share our work with others, and receive helpful suggestions about what to improve. Bring your laptops, tablets, or notebook and pen and a willingness to learn.
We will meet on the 4th Wednesday of every month.
This month, Joy Baglio, the Spring 2023 writer-in-residence at the Jack Kerouac House will teach us about Embracing the Strange: Writing Speculative Fiction to Get at Deeper Truths.
You can also Zoom into the meeting. Register at https://bit.ly/owl04262023.
Writers of all types of fiction often find themselves exploring the boundaries between the possible and impossible, often contemplating some version of the question, Can “strange” and magical stories allow us to better express the raw truths of our lived experiences? In this class, we’ll discuss this idea, as well as the particular powers that come along with the various modes of reality-bending storytelling, in particular the ability to get at a real-world truth metaphorically.
Joy will give a short craft talk on incorporating fantastic elements (believably and compellingly) into fiction, touching on topics such as worldbuilding, ghost stories, retellings of fairy tales and myths, and using amplification and “What If?” constructs, among other things. We’ll also look at short, masterful excerpts from authors who challenge realism, with special attention to the types of fabulist distortions used and the real-world truths they get at. Lastly, we’ll spend time writing in response to a number of imaginative prompts inspired by the excerpts and topics discussed. Whether you’re a seasoned master of the surreal or completely new to speculative fiction, this class aims to be informative to writers of all backgrounds, generative (come prepared to write), and interactive.
Joy Baglio is a speculative-literary fiction writer from Northampton, MA. Her short stories have appeared widely in such journals as The Missouri Review, Tin House, American Short Fiction, Conjunctions, Apex Magazine, The Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, SmokeLong Quarterly, Fairy Tale Review, and elsewhere and several stories have been optioned for film/TV. Follow her on Twitter at @JoyBaglio and visit her online at [www.JoyBaglio.com](http://www.joybaglio.com/).

Orlando Word Lab