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Writing Workshops

New Ways to Jumpstart Stalled Stories with Sahar Mustafah

$150

2 Sessions via Zoom

Out of stock

Saturday & Sunday 2:00 pm EDT - 4:15 pm EDT February 20 to February 21, 2021

In this workshop, we’ll explore ways of re-entering our stories, as well as strategies to expand characters and scenes.

Session 1

  • Introduction
      • Icebreaker
      • Community-building
  • Exploring the Origin Stories of Our Characters:
      • “Foundational Wound”
      • Timeline of major events
  • Infusing Joy
      • Incorporating moments/patterns of happiness

Session 2

  • Optimizing Space and Objects
      • Taking stock of physical space and objects
  • Quick-fire Starts
      • Tools to instantly create or re-enter scenes when writer’s block hits

Level: Introductory
Capacity: 20

This workshop will take place online via Zoom. Participants will receive instructions for access prior to the first session.

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Led by

  • Sahar Mustafah (Credit Tamara Hijazi)

    Sahar Mustafah

    Sahar Mustafah

    Sahar Mustafah is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, an inheritance she explores in her fiction. Her first novel The Beauty of Your Face (W.W. Norton, 2020) was named a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a Los Angeles Times United We Read selection, and one of Marie Claire magazine’s 2020 Best Fiction by Women, and a Great Group Reads for National Reading Group Month. It was longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2020 First Novel Prize, and is currently a finalist for Chicago Writers Association Best Book of the Year award and the Chicago Review of Books award. Her short story collection Code of the West was the winner of the 2016 Willow Books Fiction Award. Her stories have earned a Distinguished Story citation from Best American Short Stories 2016, First Place in Fiction from the Guild Literary Complex of Chicago, and three Pushcart Prize nominations, among other honors. Mustafah earned her MFA from Columbia College Chicago where she was the recipient of the David Friedman Award for Best Fiction. She writes and teaches outside of Chicago.