Instructor: Luke Wortley

A strong setting is instrumental in creating opportunities for characterization, as well as plot development and meaningful action. In this workshop, we will use a series of rapid-fire prompts to blend memory, the unknown, and the imagination to create the foundations for fully realized settings that are every bit as vivid as your characters, with the power to act as agents of change. We will also read excerpts from contemporary writers who have managed to capture a variety of settings and explore what makes a sense of place authentic beyond topography, flora, fauna, and geopolitical boundaries. We will look into how collective memory, history, language, and social norms contribute to a sense of place and discuss methods of how to capture those on the page for places both real and entirely fictional.
This class is inclusive and open to writers of all experience levels, identities, and backgrounds and is also not limited to writers of fiction – essayists, CNFers, poets, and hybrid-form folks are welcome.

I’ll leave the light on for y’all.