Writing Workshops

Storytelling and Place with Omer Friedlander

$150

3 Sessions

Out of stock

Friday - Sunday November 11 to November 13, 2022

Online via Zoom

Meeting Dates:
Friday, 11/11 from 6–8pm ET
Saturday & Sunday, 11/12 & 11/13 from 2–4pm ET
3 Sessions via Zoom

One of the most overlooked elements of storytelling is the setting. A strong sense of place can really guide a story. Any kind of fictional story you write is fragile in the beginning, in the early stages of drafting. But when you find the right detail, your invented world becomes more substantial and real, it comes to life in your mind and the reader’s. Some of the stories I’ve enjoyed reading the most have this kind of vividness of place.

We will read work by writers who felt out-of-place, either strangers in their home, or sometimes at home in a strange place. We will write our own work and discuss it, focusing on setting, detail, world-building, and how a distinct sense of place can influence storytelling, character, and plot.

Capacity: 20

Led by

Omer Friedlander

Omer Friedlander

Omer Friedlander is the author of the story collection The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land. He was born in Jerusalem in 1994 and grew up in Tel Aviv. He earned a BA in English Literature from the University of Cambridge, England, and an MFA from Boston University, where he was supported by the Saul Bellow Fellowship. His short stories have won numerous awards, and have been published in the United States, Canada, France, and Israel. A Starworks Fellow in Fiction at New York University, he has earned a Bread Loaf Work-Study Scholarship as well as a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center. He currently lives in New York City.

By Omer Friedlander

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The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land

By Omer Friedlander

Published by Random House

PURCHASE

The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land announces the arrival of a natural-born storyteller of immense talent. Warm, poignant, delightfully whimsical, Omer Friedlander’s gorgeously immersive and imaginative stories take you to the narrow limestone alleyways of Jerusalem, the desolate beauty of the Negev Desert, and the sprawling orange groves of Jaffa, with characters that spring to vivid life. A divorced con artist and his daughter sell empty bottles of “holy air” to credulous tourists; a Lebanese Scheherazade enchants three young soldiers in a bombed-out Beirut radio station; a boy daringly “rooftops” at night, climbing steel cranes in scuffed sneakers even as he reimagines the bravery of a Polish-Jewish dancer during the Holocaust; an Israeli volunteer at a West Bank checkpoint mourns the death of her son, a soldier killed in Gaza.

These stories render the intimate lives of people striving for connection. They are fairy tales turned on their head by the stakes of real life, where moments of fragile intimacy mix with comedy and notes of the absurd. Told in prose of astonishing vividness that also demonstrates remarkable control and restraint, they have a universal appeal to the heart.

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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