Workshop
In a Flash: A Workshop for Crafting Short Fiction and Nonfiction
with Andrea A. Firth
October 26 - November 16 • 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (EST)
Dates
October 26 - November 16 • 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM (EST)
Duration
4 weeks
Location
Online
Price
US$280
About the workshop
Flash—stories less than 1,000 words—is hot! Learn why and how short prose, fiction and nonfiction, is changing the way we tell stories.
Details
In this four-week class, you will get a detailed overview of the genre and opportunities to write and share your flash fiction and CNF too. We’ll read and analyze a wide range of shorts, stories and essays, and see how to engage readers in a small space by eliminating the excess and keeping what’s most essential. We’ll explore how voice, language, point-of-view, and structure contribute, as well the often-present, fun twist found in flash. Through in-class freewrites, take-home prompts, and two workshops (on weeks 3 and 4) you will develop new writing and editing skills and learn how to tell your stories in a different way. Several journals and anthologies now feature flash writing, and we’ll look at places where you can submit your shorts too.
What you will learn
- Learn What Flash Is and Isn’t and How it Breaks the Rules - See Why and How Flash Shorts Are “Hot” From the First Sentence - Discover the Keys to the Flash Form: Urgency, Conflict, and a Twist - See the Many Forms a Flash Piece Can Take - Debunk the Myths About Flash and Uncover the Craft - Review Outlets for Flash to Submit to and Read Practice Writing Flash and Leaving What’s Most Essential on the Page -Develop an Effective Approach to Revising Flash -Participate in a Supportive and Useful Workshop
Workshop takeaways
Writers will leave with a strong understanding of the form and an approach to writing flash with take home prompts and ideas of what to read and where to submit. Writers will also have two opportunities to share their flash pieces ( a short, 100 words) and a longer piece (up to 1,000 words) in a facilitated workshop setting. Plus written feedback from Andrea. Andrea will post the class slides with clickable links, readings, bibliography of flash anthologies and craft books.
What you will be reading
A selection of published flash fiction and nonfiction from journals (e.g., Brevity, Smokelong Quarterly) and current flash anthologies
Additional info
Class Breakdown:
Week 1: Freewrite and Take-home Prompts
Week 2: Mini-workshop
Week 3: Read peer's work in advance and prepare feedback
Week 4: Read peer's work in advance and prepare feedback
About the instructor
Andrea A. Firth is a writer, editor, and educator based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been a freelance writer for over twenty-five years and has taught writing in both the college and community settings. She is an editor for the Brevity Blog. Andrea is also cofounder of Diablo Writers’ Workshop where she teaches creative writing, provides editorial consulting, and supports a vibrant writing community. Andrea has an MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from Saint Mary’s College of California. Her writing focus is personal essay, literary journalism and hybrid work. She was a finalist for the Missouri Review's 2021 Perkoff Prize in Nonfiction, and you can read a selection of her writing at her website and find her on Instagram.
Learn to write and revise flash fiction and nonfiction
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