Writing Workshops

Unputdownable: How to Grab a Reader’s Attention and Keep It with Stefan Merrill Block

$150

3 Sessions

Out of stock

Friday–Sunday April 12 to April 14, 2024

Online via Zoom

Registration for this course is closed.

Meeting Times:
Friday 4/12: 6:30–8:30pm ET (Friday)
Saturday 4/13 & Sunday 4/14: 2-4pm ET

Whether it’s literary fiction, a genre novel, or nonfiction, a story’s ability to find a readership comes down to a single essential question: do readers feel that they need to keep turning pages? In this three-session bootcamp, participants will explore techniques to seize and hold the reader’s precious attention. By dissecting a few celebrated pieces of short fiction, the workshop will consider ways to cultivate suspense, to raise stakes and escalate conflict, to craft compelling and sympathetic characters, to keep language urgent and active, and to structure a story in the most dramatic way possible. This bootcamp is perfect for writers who are trying to revise their work for maximum effect, and also for writers who are just at the start of a project and considering how to give shape to an idea or story.

Course Outline

For the lecture portion of each class, we’ll discuss a distinct element of craft, using 1–2 piece(s) of published fiction to illustrate our conversation.

Session I: High-Stakes Premise and Structure
- Reading: Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood
Session II: Active Language and Dialogue
- Reading: “Boys Town” by Jim Shepard and “That Crafty Feeling” by Zadie Smith
Session III: Unforgettable Characters and Settings
- Reading: “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” by Alice Munro and “Posthumous” by Jeffery Eugenides

Led by

Stefan Merrill Block

Stefan Merrill Block

Stefan Merrill Block grew up in Plano, Texas. His first book, The Story of Forgetting, was an international bestseller and the winner of Best First Fiction at the Rome International Festival of Literature, The Ovid Prize from the Romanian Writer’s Union, the 2008 Merck Serono Literature Prize and the 2009 Fiction Award from The Writers’ League of Texas. The Story of Forgetting was also a finalist for the debut fiction awards from IndieBound, Salon du Livre, and The Center for Fiction. Stefan’s stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker Page-Turner, the Guardian, NPR’s Radiolab, GRANTA, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. Stefan’s most recent novel, Oliver Loving, was released in 2018 by Macmillan/Flatiron Books, and is being developed for television by Participant Media. He lives in Brooklyn.

Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan

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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