Lafayette Writers' Studio

Creative thought begins with the remembrance of what is known. Yet everything you’ve ever experienced is in your subconscious. Sensory detail provides access to such liminal spaces. In this workshop, we will explore how to use our senses to add emotion and depth to our writing. We will discuss current theories regarding memory and creativity, and then we will turn our energies toward exercises utilizing our own photographs to access the unconscious mind, ultimately rendering those moments in writing. You will leave with a better understanding of how to develop greater sensory detail in your work to further develop your characters, and how the richness of memory can compel readers and serve as a springboard to new possibilities.

This isn’t a grammar class. This is an art class. And it’s ideal for memoirists and fiction writers alike.

Using Joe Brainard’s seminal 1975 memoir “I Remember” as inspiration, we will use a simple but infinitely generative tool to unlock your memories and get them down on the page. First, we’ll experience how repetitive sentence structure opens our connection to memory free from the distractions of craft. And then, we’ll experiment against the limits of repetition as craft itself. Never heard of “sentence combining”? We’ll reveal the ways in which you’re already applying its secrets, and we’ll discover new ways to consciously harness its power as a tool for expression and revision. We’re going to get playful and messy with sentences. Have a pair of scissors handy.

Every good YA novel is born of its author’s inner adolescent, that high school kid that never went away. This workshop will put writers in touch with their teenage selves and help them begin to shape their material into a YA novel that will appeal to kids today. Class time will address the differences between adult and young adult fiction, identify the characteristics of a good YA novel, and offer examples of YA writing that works. Through a series of exercises, writers will discover strategies for finding their teenage voice and shaping their material into novels that appeal to kids today. PLUS all registrants receive a copy of About Grace.