Metaphors Be With You will be an interactive, participative poetry workshop featuring hands-on exercises and prompts offering a fresh way to look at creative writing devices to spark new work or enhance existing work. 

Are you interested in writing a memoir but not sure what that entails? Sign up for this session to learn more about memoir writing. I will talk about the distinction between autobiography (an entire life story) and memoir writing (a slice of life) and a bit about what to do when you have a finished product. Are you writing for yourself, your family, or a wider audience? You will receive some prompts to brainstorm about in class and some to take home to work on in future. Everyone’s experiences are unique, but you’ll learn some tips about how to make them interesting to all. You owe it to yourself to capture your life in writing.

Every story has some sense of time or place in history, even if only slight. But not every story is historical fiction. What's the difference? How can you use the history in your story to the best effect, regardless of genre? We'll consider the various aspects of history as a narrative element, for all writers.

Genre is sometimes miscast as a form of fiction that can be overly formulaic, relying on familiar tropes, plot structures and character types. But this frequently is not the case. In this talk, we’ll discuss ways the genres of horror and mystery often take delight in the strange and unexpected. We’ll also think about strategies for avoiding familiar tropes and leaning into the surprises that might occur throughout the writing process. How might we incorporate the unexpected twists and turns of writing without the narrative becoming too random? What are some of the ways stories can gain tension by sometimes going against genre expectations? How might we stray from a too-tight narrative path without getting lost in the forest?