Mind the Gap: How to Write a Novel When All You Think You Know Is How to Write Short Stories (online class)

Instructor: Noley Reid
$189 Members | $210 Nonmembers
Wednesdays, 3/30/22 – 5/18/22 | 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm (Eastern Time)

Writers are often taught to write short stories, then left on their own to figure out the most complicated and lengthy, final fictive form: the novel. The struggle in the gap between story and novel is real, folks. But fear not. If you know how to write short stories, you have the key to writing a novel. In this class, students will begin with a story of their own, already written, that they want to continue working with. Then we will look at the many ways a diverse group of published authors—who are killing it right now (Yaa Gyasi, Louise Erdrich, Tommy Orange, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Tiphanie Yanique, and more)—have molded their novels-in-stories. Each week, students will write new material in a similar vein for their own novels, building on that initial short story. Students will begin the class with a short story and end the class with a partial novel and all the skills needed to finish it.

After 18 years as a college professor of Creative Writing, Noley Reid now writes fulltime on the subjects of body, food, and family and moonlights to teach because she misses it. Reid is author of the novel Pretend We Are Lovely, which O, The Oprah Magazine called “scrumptious.” Her previous books are the short story collection So There! and the novel-in-stories In the Breeze of Passing Things. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Rumpus, The Lily, Bustle, Tin House, The Southern Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, Publishers Weekly, Split Lip Magazine, CRAFT Literary, and Other Voices. She is the winner of a DANA Award in Short Fiction, a Burnside Review Fiction Chapbook Competition, and two 2nd Prize Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards. She lives in southwest Indiana with her two best boys. www.NoleyReid.com

Registration for this class is closed.