Going Under the Words: Creating Fiction & Memoir
With Shaena Lambert
June 12 - 17, 2020
This program will either be moved to a virtual gathering, be rescheduled to another date, or cancelled. We are currently working out all the details.
We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you so much for your patience, support, and understanding.
Sign-up to be notified when we have more information confirmed. You may also find details on Hollyhock’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic here.
You must apply before you can register. Apply here.
Writing imaginatively is part craft, part mystery, or as Flannery O’Connor put it, ‘both canny and uncanny.’ Learn techniques for digging deeper and getting under your words on the page, to create pieces with a unique depth, voice and structure. Find out what your writing is really trying to say by peeling back the outer skin of your work to get at its more fascinating heart.
Whether you are beginning a new project, diving into finding your voice for the first time, deep into the revision or editing stage of a long-developed work-in-progress, or somewhere in-between, this workshop is designed to find where you are, and to give you the guidance and tools for the journey.
Shaena Lambert delivers a hands-on workshop, imparting useable skills that will carry all of us further into our work. And she does that with humour and insight. I’d recommend this workshop to any writer who wants to propel their work toward a deeper and more finished place. – Past participant, 2019
The workshop includes:
- experimental writing each day, focused on flow, voice, plot, conflict, action, scene versus summary, and other narrative issues
- building rituals, habits and tools to assist you at each stage of the creative process
- a strong focus on revision, to dig up and expand on clues you’ve left on the surface of the page
- workshopping your own and others’ writing, in a safe, engaged and creative group setting
During our time together, discover:
- how to connect with the power of your individual voice
- the deep creativity of revision
- how to use surface clues to find symbols, which can point to the underlying meaning of your work
- the excitement of weaving conflict, action and power into your work’s DNA
- how to move away from the tyranny of the laptop, engaging notebooks, file cards and scrapbooks to allow more intense creativity
- how to structure your work organically
- how to sustain a writing life
All participants should send 10 pages of fiction or memoir to be shared and discussed in workshop. To enable other participants to read and consider in advance, please submit 2 weeks before the start of the program. Those who enrol just before start date, please send your writing immediately! Thank you.
APPLY HERE
Get to know Shaena a bit better in this short interview on ShawTV:
Presenter
Shaena Lambert is an award-winning fiction writer, author of four books, most recently Petra (Random House Canada, 2020). Her other works are Oh, My Darling, Radiance and The Falling Woman. She has mentored writers and taught writing for over 15 years at some of Canada’s finest writing schools, including The Humber School for Writers and The Writers’…
Learn more about Shaena Lambert