WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION

Does plot-driven fiction mean your book can’t contain complex characters or resonant themes? Does literary work necessarily shun plot? Genre borders in modern literature are fading: agents, editors, and readers love fiction that has nuance and rhythm, but that also urges us to turn pages.

In this critique-based workshop for novel and short story writers, we will explore beginning and advanced genre techniques for plot, dialogue, setting, scene construction, and theme in order to deepen your work. Writing is a mixture of craft and imagination and, as such, we will look at outlining and free association techniques, chapter beginnings and endings, villains, and story “beats,” among other aspects of craft. The ultimate goal in working together is to learn how to create your best possible work by thinking outside the box.

You will be asked to submit a five to ten page double-spaced excerpt (2,500 words max) from a novel or short story and read the submissions of your classmates before we gather. Students will prepare one page of written feedback (as per faculty guidelines to be shared later) of each other’s writing.

REQUIREMENTS

• This is an all-levels workshop.
• Please submit a cover letter that states your interest in this workshop and gives an overview of your prior workshop experience, if any.
• The cost is $675. If you are selected to participate in the workshop, a deposit of $300 is required to register, with the balance due by September 30.
• If you are accepted, you have the option of attending the Keynote on Thursday, January 11, at a reduced price of $150 (we will send you a link upon confirmation). Alternately, you may purchase a ticket to attend the Seminar in full, as it runs after the workshops (January 11 – 14).
• Financial Assistance is available to those who would not otherwise be able to attend—click here for guidelines and/or to apply for a Workshop Fellowship Award. (Do not submit a regular application if you are requesting financial aid.)
• Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until the class is full.

ABOUT

David Heska Wanbli Weiden, an enrolled citizen of the Sicangu Lakota Nation, is the author of Winter Counts, nominated for an Edgar Award, and winner of the Anthony, Thriller, Lefty, Barry, Macavity, Spur, High Plains, Electa Quinney, Tillie Olsen, CrimeFest (UK), and Crime Fiction Lover (UK) Awards. The novel was a New York Times Editors’ Choice, an Indie Next pick, main selection of the Book of the Month Club, and named a Best Book of the year by NPR, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, The Guardian, and other magazines. He has short stories appearing or forthcoming in the anthologies Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2022, Denver Noir, Midnight Hour, This Time for Sure, Never Whistle at Night, and The Perfect Crime.

Weiden received the PEN/America Writing for Justice Fellowship and is the recipient of fellowships and residencies from MacDowell, Ucross, Ragdale, Vermont Studio Center, Sewanee, and Tin House.

He’s a Professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver and serves on the faculty of the Cedar Crest Pan-European MFA Program and also the Mile-High MFA Program at Regis University.