Dorothy Allison grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, the first child of a fifteen-year-old unwed mother who worked as a waitress. Now living in Northern California with her partner Alix and her teenage son, she describes herself as a feminist, a working class story teller, a Southern expatriate, a sometime poet and a happily born-again Californian. Allison’s chapbook of poetry, “The Women Who Hate Me,” was published with Long Haul Press in 1983. Her short story collection, “Trash” came out in 1988. “Bastard Out of Carolina,” became a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award, and “Cavedweller” is a national bestseller. Awarded the 2007 Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction, Allison is a member of the board of the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
“Getting to the Good Stuff”
A generative workshop designed to begin new work or restart writing that has gone cold. We will begin with a brief selection of a manuscript on which you wish to start or start anew. You will be asked to work from questions or suggestions provided by the instructor–and exchange drafts with other workshop members. The workshop will then focus on work on the page, with detailed attention to critiquing drafts and bringing characters and language to a new level of engagement. Reference for the workshop will be Ursula LeGuin’s “Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew”–an invaluable resource for literary terms and explications of voice, point of view and place. Register.