Summer Creative Writing Workshop: SF and Fantasy and Romance and more!

Join us Saturday, June 27th on the University of Findlay campus for a FREE creative writing workshop on “genre fiction”: Science-Fiction/Speculative Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Romance, Children’s Books, and more!

This workshop is a free in-person event and open to all writers High School and older.

Schedule:

Morning: Craft talks with Writing Prompts
11am-1pm: Lunch on own, with time for writing!
Afternoon: Facilitated small-group workshops, followed by an open mic

For more information or to register, contact Dave Essinger, essinger@findlay.edu.

Presenters:

Dave Essinger’s second novel This World and the Next is available now from Main Street Rag Publishing Company. His first book, Running Out, was released in 2017. He received his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is General Editor of the AWP Intro Journals Project, and teaches creative writing and edits the literary magazine Slippery Elm at the University of Findlay. See more at https://dave-essinger.com/.

“World-building: Making the strange familiar, and the familiar strange” How do we create worlds that are fundamentally different from our own, and make our readers feel at home in them? We’ll talk about the rules and expectations of major genres, and weaving in exposition while avoiding the dreaded “info dump,” with generative exercises.

Melanie Dusseau is a multi-genre writer, scholar, and creative writing professor from Toledo, Ohio. She holds an MFA from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, and is the author of a poetry collection, The Body Tries Again. An associate professor of English at the University of Findlay, she teaches literature as well as craft workshops in poetry, creative nonfiction, and writing romance and genre-friendly fiction. In the summer she leads a UF study abroad trip, Celtic Scholars, to Ireland and Scotland. New poetry is forthcoming in the UK magazine Steel Jackdaw, and she’s working on a chapbook as well as a paranormal romance series. You can read about other projects she’s got brewing on her website.

“Trope-tastically Yours: Originality in the Romance Genre”
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: an ancient, grumpy fae soldier falls for a sunny, free-spirited book nerd in this magical retelling of Insert Fairy Tale. The genre of romance is driven by tropes—rivals to lovers; fated mates; forced proximity; fake dating; grumpy/sunshine—and these grooves of existing story archetypes are just asking to be subverted and made new. This interactive craft talk will offer strategies for reading like a writer, satisfying audience expectations, understanding the beats that drive romance plots, and using setting and character arcs to create an original, imaginative story idea that could only be penned by you.

Harley Ferris received his master’s and doctorate from the University of Louisville, where he also served as Assistant Director of Creative Writing and received the Sarah-Jean McDowell Award for Excellence in Fiction. He composes both academic and creative work, with poems and stories published in The Aquarian, the Florida English Journal, and Word Riot. Also a musician, his full-length album, Long Time Coming, was released in March of 2023. Harley currently resides, writes, teaches, and sings in Findlay, Ohio.

“Rules, Expectations, and Worlds that Feel Real (Even When They Aren’t)”
Every world, no matter how like or unlike our own, has rules that set readers’ expectations for what is and isn’t possible in your story. Whether setting boundaries for magic, explaining the physiology of creatures, or simply preparing readers for violence, writers carefully drop clues and describe setting through dialogue and exposition that allow readers to suspend disbelief and accept the rules of the story’s world. This workshop offers strategies for writers to plan and compose fantasy, horror, and speculative fiction that feel realistic, however far afield of our present reality.