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Summer Workshops for Young Writers

Technicolor Zip: Literary Maximalism with Katherine Mayfield

$600

8 Sessions

Out of stock

Monday - Thursday 1:00 pm EDT - 3:00 pm EDT July 26 to August 5, 2021

Online via Zoom

The focus of this class is literary maximalism: over-bright language, hallucinatory descriptions, excess movement, and vivid, hyper-sensory scenes. We will investigate maximalism across a variety of genres, from Vladimir Nabokov to Carmen Maria Machado to Hayao Miyazaki, and examine what tools these writers and artists use to achieve such radiant, vibrant aesthetics in their stories. Students will draw, create collages, and participate in daily generative writing exercises to better explore these techniques, and to heighten vivid detail in their own work.

We will read/watch the works of each of the following writers/artists in detail (one per class), examine their techniques, and use each reading/clip as a springboard for a drawing/collage warm-up, followed by a generative writing exercise, and then a sharing/feedback session.

The writers/artists include:

  • Carmen Maria Machado (“Mothers”)
  • Vladimir Nabokov (Speak, Memory – excerpt)
  • Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle – movie clips)
  • Jesmyn Ward (Salvage the Bones – excerpt)
  • Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude – excerpt)
  • Patricia Lockwood (Priestdaddy – excerpt)
  • Helen Oyeyemi (“A Brief History of the Homely Wench Society”)
  • Tarsem Singh (The Fall – movie clips)

Designed for young writers, ages 13-18.
Capacity: 12

NOTE: Please include the following information about the student taking the course in the “Notes” field at checkout: student’s name, grade level, and email address.


Each year The Center for Fiction offers KidsWrite Fellowships for young adults in need of financial assistance. To apply to be a 2021 Summer KidsWrite Fellow, please click hereThe deadline to apply for a KidsWrite Fellowship is 11:59pm ET on June 12, 2021.

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Led by

  • Katherine Mayfield_headshot - Katherine Augusta Mayfield

    Katherine Mayfield

    Katherine Mayfield

    Katherine Mayfield’s work has been published in No Tokens and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and she is the recipient of residencies and fellowships from The Center for Fiction, The Vermont Studio Center, The New York Summer Writers Workshop, Rufus Stone, and Gullkistan. She received an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and teaches creative writing and composition at Hunter and York Colleges.