Writing Workshops

"So That the City Can Begin to Exist": Writing Place in Crime Fiction with William Boyle (June 2024)

$150

3 Sessions

Out of stock

Friday–Sunday June 14 to June 16, 2024

The Center for Fiction

Meeting Details:
Friday–Sunday, 6/14–6/16
6–8pm ET (Friday); 11am–1pm ET (Saturday & Sunday)
In Person at The Center for Fiction

This workshop will consider how writers of crime fiction might build a sense of place in their work, how place can function as a character and widen the scope of the story through its interplay with time, memory, and history. The course will be a mix of lecture, reading/discussion, writing exercises, and Q&A.

Course Outline

Some topics we will cover: blending the real and the imagined; writing a place—to borrow a phrase from Hubert Selby, Jr.—of the soul; letting place guide you; capturing the sound and feel of the place you’re writing about; world-building through loneliness, isolation, and meandering; focusing on sensory details; the interplay of memory and place; the interplay of time and place; having the history that exists under the surface of the place bleed around the edges of your current work; the value of getting lost in a place, working without maps. We will consider examples from writers like Chester Himes, Patricia Highsmith, and Barry Gifford.

Led by

William Boyle

William Boyle

William Boyle is the author of eight works of fiction set in the southern Brooklyn neighborhood where he was born and raised: Gravesend, which was nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France and shortlisted for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger in the U.K.; Death Don’t Have No Mercy, a story collection; Everything Is Broken, published initially in France and subsequently serialized in Southwest Review; The Lonely Witness, which was nominated for the Hammett Prize and the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière; A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself, winner of the Prix Transfuge du meilleur polar étranger in France and an Amazon Best Book of 2019; City of Margins, a Washington Post Best Thriller and Mystery Book of 2020; Shoot the Moonlight Out, listed by CrimeReads as one of the ten best noir novels of 2021 and nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in 2023; and, coming in 2025 from Soho Crime, Saint of the Narrows Street. He currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

Photo Credit: Katie Farrell Boyle

About this series

Writing Workshops

We strive to make our classes the most inviting and rewarding available, offering an intimate environment to study with award-winning, world-class writers. Each class is specially designed by the instructor, so whether you’re a fledgling writer or an MFA graduate polishing your novel, you’ll find a perfect fit here.

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