$495
8 Sessions
Out of stock
Once a week Mondays, 7:00 pm EDT - 9:00 pm EDT June 21 to August 9, 2021
Online via Zoom
This workshops has reached its capacity. Please click here to join the waitlist.
I have come to believe that if you can write grief as you truly experienced it, you can write anything. During our time together, you will have the opportunity to workshop a story of up to 12 pages in a warm and supportive space. We’ll explore entranceways into grief stories and ways to end them meaningfully, even if we haven’t found closure for similar experiences. We’ll also look at how sound and structure can be used to communicate feeling; what constitutes change in a grief story; consider new ideas on sentimentality and reader resistance; and learn ways to care for ourselves as we tell these important stories.
Together, we’ll explore:
- Writing from a wound vs. writing from a scar
- What helps when writing grief
- Ways to workshop grief stories
- Grief writing structures
- Showing change in a grief story
- Grief in the body, objects, and nature
- Writing long-term grief
- Ideas on sentimentality and distance
All Levels
Capacity: 12
This workshop will take place online via Zoom.
Led by
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Diane Zinna
Diane Zinna
Diane Zinna is originally from Long Island, New York. She received her MFA from the University of Florida and has taught creative writing for more than a decade. In 2014, Diane created the Writer to Writer Mentorship Program, helping to match more than six hundred writers over twelve seasons. In 2020, Diane received the ArtsFairfax Artist Grant for The All-Night Sun, her first novel, and the book was longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the Cabell First Novelist Award. Diane lives in Fairfax, Virginia, with her husband and daughter.
By Diane Zinna
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The All-Night Sun
By Diane Zinna
Published by Random House
Lauren Cress teaches writing at a small college outside of Washington, DC. In the classroom, she is poised, smart, and kind, well liked by her students and colleagues. But in her personal life, Lauren is troubled and isolated, still grappling with the sudden death of her parents ten years earlier. She seems to exist at a remove from everyone around her until a new student joins her class: charming, magnetic Siri, who appears to be everything Lauren wishes she could be. They fall headlong into an all-consuming friendship that makes Lauren feel as though she is reclaiming her lost adolescence.
When Siri invites her on a trip home to Sweden for the summer, Lauren impulsively accepts, intrigued by how Siri describes it: green, fresh, and new, everything just thawing out. But once there, Lauren finds herself drawn to Siri’s enigmatic, brooding brother, Magnus. Siri is resentful, and Lauren starts to see a new side of her friend: selfish, reckless, self-destructive, even cruel. On their last night together, Lauren accompanies Siri and her friends on a seaside camping trip to celebrate Midsommar’s Eve, a night when no one sleeps, boundaries blur, and under the light of the unsetting sun, things take a dark turn.
Ultimately, Lauren must acknowledge the truth of what happened with Siri and come to terms with her own tragic past in this gorgeously written, deeply felt debut about the transformative relationships that often come to us when things feel darkest.
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.