Fiction | Workshop

8-Week Generative Fiction Workshop

In this eight-week generative fiction workshop best suited to writers with some prior workshop experience, we will discuss the foundational elements of dramatic storytelling and learn the surprising and significant ways in which stories look like life. We will then take those very elements and use them as writing prompts. These prompts are simple, vast, and deep, like wells that never run out of water. Students can expect a blend of engaging, energizing craft talks designed to get them writing and working through blocks, as well as in-depth workshops of two fiction submissions, either drawn from our prompts or from pieces in-progress. Writers will leave this course with a greater sense of the possibilities of their own work, the tools to work through creative blocks, and two workshopped pieces, as well as several pages of new writing that will hopefully be the foundation for exciting new fiction.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

- You will leave this class with two peer- and teacher-edited stories

- You will have a clearer sense of structure in the novella and short story form

- You will be equipped to self-generate reflective, honest, and interesting work

*No class July 3rd

Scott Cheshire

Scott Cheshire is the author of the novel HIGH AS THE HORSES' BRIDLES, a Washington Post Best Book of 2014. His work has been published in AGNI, Electric Literature, Guernica, Harper’s, One Story, and the Picador Book of Men. He lives in New York City.

Testimonials

"I've had the pleasure of taking multiple workshops led by Scott Cheshire and am impressed with his intellect and generosity. He challenges his students to approach writing from a place of dogged determination and interrogation, and he's as curious about the magic of writing as the students he works with. Not only did he teach me to read more critically but he also helped move my writing past safe, stale drafts into dynamic works that pushed both my capabilities and my imagination."

Lisa Mecham

“Highbrow… Brilliant… A time-traveling, DeLillo-esque debut.”

New York Magazine

“A powerful book, an unflinching examination of two centuries of American yearning and desire.”

Colum McCann The New York Times Book Review

“Daring and brilliant… something of a miracle.”

Ron Charles The Washington Post

"Scott is that rare instructor who teaches as well as he writes. From thoughtful exercises to carefully considered criticism, he is unceasingly generous in his time and attention, and I treasure all of my marked-up manuscript pages from his class. Scott's passion for literature is contagious, and I would take another course with him in a heartbeat. He really is that good."

Robert Levy author of THE GLITTERING WORLD