Karen K. Ford

Finding Your Secret Story

Fiction

Monday-Friday
1:00-3:30 pM
Studio

This workshop is for any writer who has felt the pull of a story struggling to emerge from an ocean of words. It’s about that novel you’ve never finished, those short stories that seem to go nowhere, or any piece of writing that seems to fall short of your expectations.

Believe it or not, the answers are already in your work. Even in the earliest of drafts – perhaps especially in the earliest of drafts – the seeds of the story are there, placed by your subconscious. Throughout the course of the week, I will teach practical techniques for partnering with your subconscious. By learning to decipher your own text, you’ll begin to uncover the stories buried within – stories that only you can tell. We’ll talk about beginnings, how to become your own editor, the connection between style and story and the all-important thematic statement.

We deal primarily with fiction – short or long form – but the practices and principles apply to nonfiction, as well, and writers of all genres and levels of experience are welcome. Sessions are centered on read and critique, with opening pages preferred.Those attending read their own work aloud for positive feedback from the group moderated by the workshop leader.

Bio

Karen K. Ford is an award-winning author of short fiction whose honors include top prizes from Narrative and bosque (the magazine.) Her work has been shortlisted for the Tobias Wolff Fiction Award and the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Prize and anthologized in Ginosko. Karen lives in Southern California, with her rescue mutt, Dude, where she is a freelance editor and writing coach.

Influences:

Kurt Vonnegut, George Saunders, Tom Franklin, James Dickey, Lori Roy, Tana French, Ian McEwan, Flannery O’Connor, Aesop and the Brothers Grimm.

Recommended text:

Double Your Creative Power by founding SBWC workshop leader S.L. Stebel, whose teachings and principles inform this workshop.