We often think of literary settings as vast natural landscapes or bustling, far-flung urban backdrops. Even the hero's journey supposes that our greatest adventures happen far and away. But many of our most intimate and transformative moments happen at home, and our most human stories tend to take place in domestic settings. The artist Carrie Mae Weems' Kitchen Table Series is a collection of photographic stills featuring a family gathering around a simple wooden dining table, depicting the drama of family life. William Carlos Willams' red wheelbarrow, resting alone in the yard by the chickens, creates a whole world by asking us to consider who has left it there. In her memoir, T Kira Madden begins by considering the shag carpet, reclining chair, and department store mannequin her mother brought home, in the living room of her childhood apartment-home. And Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway opens with her protagonist bursting through the front door to buy the flowers herself, puncturing the line between private and public life, and setting an entire story into motion.

Our characters' relationships to home life, and the sense of place we build as writers around everyday environments, is a form of world-building that is often neglected in our craft studies. This generative workshop will guide you through a series of prompts to help you build, design, and renovate your home interiors and exteriors. You will be invited to add detail to scenes and characters, and we will consider how depicting a rich private life can shape the larger story you are telling.

This class is best suited for writers of nonfiction and fiction at all stages, but all genres are welcome. Students will share work toward the end of the week for verbal discussion, but the focus of this workshop will be on creating new work, rather than on feedback and revision.

In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts, and share our work at each writer's comfort level, offering first impressions on writing that is produced during the week.