A clock ticks inside every story. The clock might measure a decade, a day, or a single moment. Your story’s clock might not even look like a clock. Your clock might be a river, a tree, or a rock reflecting years of erosion. To locate your story's clock is no small thing, because it means unlocking opportunities to shape and control a story, from plot and structure to your characters’ desires and turns. In this class, we will study modes of narrative time, learning how to stretch a single moment out over many pages in scene, how to speed up years in paragraphs of summary, how to distill decades into sentences, and how to brushstroke in echoes of ancient, otherworldly time. Daily reading assignments and writing prompts will invite participants to generate new work, which we will workshop and discuss through the lens of time. Throughout the week, participants will remain open to philosophical opportunities in writing as well as practical ones. Time as plot. Time as character. Time as subject matter. Time as process, or the invitation, when this course ends, to write out of a renewed sense of urgency and patience, simultaneously.

Open to writers of all levels who are interested in fiction and narrative nonfiction.

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our week.