LAURA VENITA GREEN—DEVILS, DOPPELGÄNGERS, GHOSTS, AND CREEPY DOLLS: INCORPORATING ENTITY INTO YOUR FICTION TO TELL VERY HUMAN STORIES

Friday, March 27
1 – 2:15 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
LAURA VENITA GREEN—DEVILS, DOPPELGÄNGERS, GHOSTS, AND CREEPY DOLLS: INCORPORATING ENTITY INTO YOUR FICTION TO TELL VERY HUMAN STORIES
Serious literature doesn’t necessarily mean realist literature. Often, adding speculative elements into our fiction can help us reach a deeper level of truth and meaning, amplifying any subject we’re attempting to tackle, such as family, relationships, mental health, motherhood, growing up, and belonging. Introducing devils, demons, dogs, doppelgängers, or any number of non-human or superhuman entities is a great technique for underpinning characters’ psychological states, flaws, and behaviors. It’s also a strategy that can be used to reach toward the inarticulable messiness of the human condition. Each of us contains entire worlds—how do we contend with a truth that large? Through group discussion, targeted writing prompts, and examining contemporary genre-bending writers like Samanta Schweblin, ‘Pemi Aguda, Helen Phillips, and Ananda Lima, this craft session with novelist and translator Laura Venita Green will leave you with concrete ideas on how to incorporate some sort of entity or presence into your fiction to tell very human stories.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.