Writing Workshops

Writing Powerful, Characterizing Dialogue in Fiction with Joanna Cantor

$395

6 Sessions

In stock

Once a week Wednesdays, 7:00 pm EDT - 9:00 pm EDT October 11 to November 15, 2023

Online via Zoom

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In this workshop, we’ll examine both student work and assigned readings by writers such as Bryan Washington, Emma Cline, and Jhumpa Lahiri, focusing on how to write pithy, characterizing dialogue as well as several other crucial elements of craft including the interdependent relationship between character and plot and the balance between scene and exposition. During class, we’ll use writing prompts to help generate new work.

Each writer will have the opportunity to submit new work for peer and instructor feedback. Writers will leave this workshop with a heightened instinct for playful, engaging dialogue and more confidence in their craft.

Course Outline

Week 1: Introduction, writing exercise, Anne Lamott, writing process, Bryan Washington
Week 2: Jhumpa Lahiri, plot, five modes, student work
Week 3: Dialogue, Emma Cline, student work
Week 4: Character, ZZ Packer, student work
Week 5: Emotion, dialogue, point of view, JD Salinger, student work
Week 6: Revision, Antonya Nelson, Jason Brown, Sally Rooney, student work

Capacity: 12

Led by

Joanna Cantor

Joanna Cantor

Joanna Cantor holds an MFA from Brooklyn College and a BA from Colorado College. Her debut novel, Alternative Remedies for Loss, was an Amazon Best Book of the Month for May 2018 and received coverage in Vanity Fair, Real Simple, Nylon, and elsewhere. Her writing has appeared in Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Departures, Fodor’s Travel, Greatist, and Willamette Week. Joanna was a recipient of a Vermont Studio Center Fellowship. She previously taught fiction writing at Catapult and is also a yoga teacher. She lives in Brooklyn. You can keep up with Joanna on Instagram at @joannacantor and on Twitter at @jojannna.

By Joanna Cantor

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Alternative Remedies for Loss

By Joanna Cantor

Published by Bloomsbury

PURCHASE

When 22-year-old Olivia learned that her mother had only months to live, she pulled up roots, leaving Vassar and her career plans far behind to be with her mother for her last days. And yet, just four months after her mother’s death, everyone in Olivia’s family already seems ready to move on. Her brothers are settled comfortably in careers and families of their own; her father has already started to date again, inviting a woman named June on a family trip. Still reeling from the loss, Olivia looks for a new start of her own, throwing herself headlong into Manhattan’s fast-moving media world, where she is alternately demeaned by bosses and pursued by men.

But as Olivia tries to piece together an adulthood without her mother to guide her, she makes a shocking discovery: a secret romantic correspondence her mother had with a man who only signed each letter “F.” As she tries to untangle the mystery of F, Olivia will journey halfway across the world, to an ashram in rural India, on a quest that will reconfigure everything Olivia thought she knew about her family and her own place in an increasingly complex world.

A profoundly moving and keenly observed contemplation of the debts we owe to the past and the ways we discover our futures, Alternative Remedies for Loss is the rare sort of book that can break and mend your heart in a single and unforgettable read.

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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