WRITER’S CRAFT SESSION: ESMÉ WEIJUN WANG

Friday, March 25, 10 – 11:15 AM WRITING PERSONAL NONFICTION ABOUT WHAT HURTS  Esmé Weijun Wang leads this session for nonfiction writers, during which we will take a look at writing nonfiction, including personal essays and memoir, about painful subjects. Questions that we will address include: How do we prepare to write about trauma while…

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WRITER’S CRAFT SESSION: ERICA SPINDLER

Friday, March 25, 1:30 – 2:45 PM MASTERING THE ART OF ADDICTIVE SUSPENSE Would you like to write a novel that readers just can’t put down? Do you wonder what elements elevate a ho-hum read to an edge-of-your-seat, roller coaster ride? New York Times-bestselling author Erica Spindler, dubbed the Master of Addictive Suspense and Queen…

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WRITER’S CRAFT SESSION: PETER HO DAVIES

Friday, March 25, 3 – 4:15 PM THE INVISIBLE ART: RE-SEEING REVISION Writers from Ernest Hemingway (“The only kind of writing is rewriting”) to Khaled Hosseini (“Writing for me is largely about rewriting”) to Joyce Carol Oates (“Most of my time writing is really re-writing”) have stressed the importance of revision. And yet, since all…

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WRITER’S CRAFT SESSION: FARRAH ROCHON

Thursday, March 24, 11:30 AM – 12:45 PM USING PSYCHOLOGY TO CREATE MEMORABLE CHARACTERS Join author Farrah Rochon on a deep dive into creating characters using various methods rooted in psychology, including characterization with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and how to apply it to fiction writing. Farrah Rochon is the USA Today Bestselling author of more than 35 novels, including The Boyfriend Project and The…

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WRITER’S CRAFT SESSION: JERICHO BROWN

Thursday, March 24, 1:30 – 2:45 PM JERICHO BROWN: NONSENSE AND SENSELESSNESS Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown takes us on a dive into what’s going on when we read a poem and think, “That doesn’t make sense.” Former Poet Laureate Rita Dove says that “poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful,” yet…

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WRITER’S CRAFT SESSION: ABRAM SHALOM HIMELSTEIN, ALISA PLANT, & KALAMU YA SALAAM

Thursday, March 24, 3 – 4:15 PM PRESENTING YOUR WORK TO A PUBLISHER Abram Shalom Himelstein of the University of New Orleans Press, Alisa Plant of Louisiana State University Press, and Kalamu ya Salaam of Runagate Press talk about how to approach a local publisher and publishers in general. These three seasoned professionals will talk…

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WRITER’S CRAFT SESSION: ZACHARY LAZAR

Thursday, March 24, 10 – 11:15 AM HOW TO PLOT A STORY Many writers find that when they sit down to write, their initial idea for a story turns out too vague, underdeveloped, or otherwise riddled with problems. It is easy to get lost at this point. In this session, Zachary Lazar, author of five…

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