Stephanie Barbé Hammer

Never Fear – Magical Realism 101

Monday - Tuesday
1:00 – 3:30 PM
Seaview

Do you love Kafka, George Saunders, Gogol, Leslie Marmon Silko, Colson Whitehead, Kathleen Alcala, and Aimee Bender? Or have you wondered if techniques of magical realism might invigorate your writing?

This 2-day workshop is geared to nonfiction writers and poets as well as experienced fiction writers. It will lead you to a playground of writing techniques designed to create a story out of almost nothing. We’ll clear challenges on how to generate a story, using fiction elements such as plot, action, and raising the stakes, but we’ll also learn to play with “lies” and enter the realm of magical realism.

Never fear… through readings, noncompetitive games and writing prompts we’ll take a leap from ordinary reality to energize your writing and send it to strange and wonderful places. You’ll leave the workshop with usable pages, a story or two, or maybe the beginning of a new novel.

Bio

Stephanie Barbé Hammer is a 7-time Pushcart Prize nominee in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Originally from Manhattan, Stephanie moved to Southern California in 1986 to teach at the University of California Riverside, and she’s lived on the West Coast ever since. Last August, she and her husband, writer Larry Behrendt moved to Santa Barbara, and are joyously exploring the city. Stephanie brought out two books this past year: the poetry chapbook City Slicker (Bamboo Dart Press) and the mystery novella Journey to Merveilleux City (Picture Show Press), which is a finalist for the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award (mystery category).

Favorite novelists:

Stephanie likes the work of Haruki Murakami, Aimee Bender, Bernadine Evaristo, the Grimm Brothers, ETA Hoffmann, Eugene Ionesco, Albert Camus, and Kathleen Alcalá.

Recent favorite novels include:

Exit West, Piranesi, The New Naturals, and Enter Ghost.