NW Media Arts and the Richard Hugo House are presenting a “Writing Fantastic Fiction Workshop Series” this autumn. The series will be held one Sunday per month, in September, October, and November. Registration fee for each course is $100 ($90 for members of the Hugo House). Each course runs from 10AM to 5PM, and is limited to between 10 and 16 people. Each one will include discussion, in-class writing exercises, and critiquing. Attendees are encouraged to bring lunch.
On 16 September, Charles de Lint will be teaching “Mythic Fiction.” For those course, attendees are encouraged to “Bring a short synopsis of your favorite myth or bit of folklore and… we’ll learn to infuse elements from archetypal fantasy into the plot of a contemporary mainstream or fantasy story. We’ll also discuss how to develop a writing style that doesn’t get in the way of the story and still retains it own individual voice. At the end of the day, Charles and his partner MaryAnn Harris will talk about markets, agents, and publishers’ lists.”
On 21 October, John Crowley’s course is entitled “It’s About Time.” He’ll talk about the rate of time flow, setting, and other ways of thinking about and working with time.
On 18 November, John Kessel’s course will be “Slipping into the Strange.” The course will talk about slipstream, and students will “learn to use allegory instead of letting it use you, literalize metaphors, borrow from non-literary sources, cross pollinate between genres, incorporate pastiche, parody or collage, or externalize psychological states of your character to produce unsettling fictions. The goal is to have your fiction evoke the strange without losing rigor or meaning.”
On the Monday following each author’s workshop, he’ll give a reading and book signing for the general public at 7PM.
For more information on the workshops, see this page. More information on the signings is available here.