You see the same stranger twice in two days. A friend calls, wanting to talk about doppelgängers and a movie she just saw. Another calls, to tell you they are having twins. You are waiting for a bus and two arrive. The orange you’re eating has another, smaller orange growing inside it. For a moment, everything feels connected.
As people and as readers, we look naturally for patterns, for sense-making, for correlations. We network, and move within networks, every day. But when it comes to writing, we so often reach for conventional linear and causal structures, shaping stories to fit the form and not the other way around. Why not honor the strange, sublime resonance of life by using phrases and sounds, gestures and habits, imagery and sequence, in order to create a meaningful super-structure? We’ll work with these possibilities, and find the generative gifts of making associations, while examining published texts, and completing writing exercises. Writers of all genres are welcome.
Amanda Goldblatt’s writing can lately be found at Fence, The Southern Review, NOON and elsewhere. She is a 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, and teaches creative writing at Northeastern Illinois University and StoryStudio Chicago. More information is available at amandagoldblatt.com.
9-9:30 Socializing
9:30-12 Program
