Word Works: Benjamin Percy on “Blending Genre”

Novelist Benjamin Percy will take your hand and show you the mysterious borderlands between literary writing and genre writing—what distinguishes them and what we can do to blend them to create a supergenre.

Along the way, Percy will also discuss the mechanics of suspense and momentum—how to keep your reader engaged from beginning to end.

Author of The House Girl Tara Conklin will conduct a Q&A after the talk.

Benjamin Percy is the author of three novels, most recently The Dead Lands, a post apocalyptic reimagining of the Lewis and Clark saga. He is also the author of Red Moon and The Wilding, as well as two books of short stories. Percy’s honors honors include a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Whiting Writers’ Award, two Pushcart Prizes, the Plimpton Prize, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories and Best American Comics.

Tara Conklin is a writer and lawyer whose first novel, The House Girl, was published in 2013 by William Morrow/Harper Collins and was a New York Times bestseller, #1 IndieNext pick, and Target book club pick, as well as being translated into eight languages. Her second novel, The Last Romantics, is forthcoming in 2016 from William Morrow/Harper Collins.  Tara’s short fiction has been published in the Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology and Pangea: Stories from Around the Globe. Before turning professionally to fiction, Tara worked for an international human rights organization in New York and as a litigator in the London and New York offices of a corporate law firm.  She holds a JD from New York University School of Law, a Master of Law & Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and a BA from Yale University. For more information, visit her website.