OPENINGS with Alex Higley
6 Weeks | Tuesdays, 8:30pm -10:15pm ET (on Zoom) | July 11 - August 15, 2023
$415 | REGISTER
In this class, we will workshop and revise openings. We will discuss writing fiction without an outline, and how that approach differs from writing plotless or unstructured prose. Our emphasis will be on opening paragraphs and opening chapters, as well as using structure to make narrative decisions while staying receptive to change and new ideas related to the work. This class is ideal for someone beginning or revising a longer prose project. The principles and approaches discussed are applicable to shorter prose work as well, and writers focusing on short stories are more than welcome.
In Week 3, we will be joined by special guest Miranda Popkey, author of Topics of Conversation.
All students will also have the opportunity to attend a Publishing 101 lecture with an agent, author, and editor.
Please write to alex@greatplacebooks.com with questions.
Alex Higley is the author of Cardinal (nominated for the PEN/Bingham) and Old Open. His novel True Failure will be published by Coffee House Press in 2024. He is an editor and co-founder of Great Place Books.
“I love the mind at work in these wonderfully strange stories about so-called ordinary life. They go right to the heart of how uncanny, even bizarre, ordinary life really is, if you’re paying attention. This is not ‘absurdist’ work. It’s ultra-realism. It’s evidence of a new, fresh voice— intelligent, strange, deeply familiar, oddly funny, pleasantly disturbing. Add Higley’s stories to my favorites.”
—BRAD WATSON, AUTHOR OF ALIENS IN THE PRIME OF THEIR LIVES