Strange Appetites: A Writing Class [Karen Russell]
This class will take place via video-conferencing (Zoom), Pacific Time.
Hunger, literal and figurative, is the fuel of narrative. What happens when you build a story around a hole, a roaring need? What new languages might we invent to describe our strangest appetites, as well as our universal longings–for nourishment, love, security, sex, transcendence, connection? How do we make sentences that capture the real toothy, gushing, groaning, groin-and-belly aching specificity of our hungers, plural? What happens on the page when our characters’ hungers contradict one another, or go unfulfilled, or threaten to swallow up the body of their host? What do contemporary American characters hunger for–publicly, privately, collectively, and in the deepest solitude of their bodies? We’ll discuss and learn from an omnivorous reading list across genres–poetry, journalism, memoir, speculative fiction and so-called “literary” fiction.
Related Events
- Karen Russell will speak at Hugo Literary Series: Strange Appetites on Friday, May 29, at 7 pm.
