“A Little or a Lot: Experiments in Dispensing Language”
with Robin McCarthy, Annie Bilancini, Amy Elisabeth Hanson
Saturday, Nov. 15, 2:30-3:-45pm (Session F7)
This workshop will compare the styles of traditionally minimalist and maximalist writers in order to identify where less is more and where it’s just less. We’ll consider the merits of each tradition with an eye to literary moments in which they work best together, and discuss how sentence-level language choices enhance prose on a macro level. We’ll then focus on exercises that encourage both sparse and expansive approaches to similar narrative tasks, with special attention to how blending the two approaches can create graceful and evocative style. The presenters off additional information below:
Who should attend?
Anyone whose hearts starts fluttering when they come across a particularly well-crafted sentence. We’ll be writing and talking about minimalist and maximalist writing and the merits of each style at the sentence level.
Name one fun fact or bit of trivia about this session:
We plan to run this as less of a presentation and more of a writing lab. We talk less. You write more. And then we all talk about our writing together!
Quick! Summarize the benefits of this workshop in 10 words or fewer:
We will all write outside of our comfort zones together.
Any last words?
We are very excited to talk to you about sentences. We don’t get the chance to talk about sentences nearly enough, and we think this is a real crime.
The countdown to Winter Wheat 2014 has officially begun! In these final weeks leading up to the event, we’re giving our presenters some space here on the blog to share additional details about their sessions, so be sure to check back for more previews. (Remember, this year’s Winter Wheat is bigger and better than ever — see this sessions list for proof.) For more information on the conference, which takes place Nov. 13-15 on the campus of Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, visit the Winter Wheat site.