An 8-Week Online Fiction Workshop
Wednesdays, January 7 - February 25, 6 - 9 PM
Though a fiction course, our class will spend its entirety exploring this notion put forth by Caitlyn Siehl’s 2014 poem “Start Here”: “When is a monster not a monster?/ Oh, when you love it.” How does a monster become, or exist as, or stop being, a monster? Does the transformation into a monster necessitate a total departure from a being’s formerly human nature, and what does the reverse – the transformation of a monster into a more human entity, what I am tentatively calling a “return” – require? And what of monsters whose departures and/or returns are never recounted in story, monsters who simply are?
Our weeks will be spent picking apart the notion of “monstrosity,” its mythical, fictional, social, and racial connotations. What, across history, have global societies defined as “monstrous?” How, through fiction, myth, folklore, politics, and rhetoric (not that any of these categories are mutually exclusive) have societies attempted to interface with, come to terms with, destroy, or, indeed, “love” that which they’ve labeled “monstrous?” Through both short-length and longer-form fiction, we will explore the narrative strategies writers have used/are using to contour and fill out the monsters they’ve chosen to include in their works. It is my hope that we will, in so doing, complicate, do battle with, upset, find ourselves repelled by, and/or find ourselves endeared to the “monstrous.”
The first four weeks we will cover readings and generative prompts, followed by four weeks of workshop with two student stories workshopped per session, and if the group is small enough, some students may even get to go twice!
$410 Members/$545 Nonmembers
Juliana Lamy is a Haitian fiction writer from South Florida. She received her Bachelor’s degree in History & Literature from Harvard University. While there, she was also the recipient of the university’s Le Baron Russell Brigg’s Prize for Undergraduate Fiction, as well as the Gordon Parks Essay Prize for Nonfiction. She is the author of You Were Watching from the Sand (Red Hen Press, 2023), winner of Red Hen Press's 2021 Ann Petry Award for Fiction, winner of the 2024 CLMP Firecracker Award for Fiction, and a longlist selection for the 2024 Carol Shield's Prize and the 2024 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Fiction. In 2023, she received her MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has work forthcoming from Ploughshares Magazine. She really is 6”2, she swears.
ADVANCE REGISTRATION REQUIRED
All MWPA workshops require advanced registration. We accept registration by phone, mail, and online via our website. We cannot guarantee registration in the final 24-hours before a workshop, and can rarely accommodate day-of registration.
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QUESTIONS
For any questions regarding this workshop, please contact programs@mainewriters.org.
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SCHOLARSHIP
The MWPA is proud to offer one partial scholarship to this workshop for members-only. Scholarships are awarded on a combination of need and merit. Application Due two weeks prior to the workshop start date, at 9:00 a.m.
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