Stories with two endings: short fiction from life

Stories with two endings: short fiction from life (starting at $79)

In her poem "Nothing twice", the poet Wislawa Szymborska says:

Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.

This is true, but not in fiction!! This workshop will help fiction writers construct a plot by asking surprising, hilarious questions about choices they made at certain times in their lives. We will reflect on how those choices caused the string of events that followed. E. M. Forster famously wrote in this book Aspects of the Novel, that, like a story, "a plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality." In fiction, we can always "take two" and keep the "bloopers" for memory. Participants will engage in a series of interactive exercises that will help craft very short, entertaining, stories about "things that could have gone a different way."

Carmen Bugan, George Orwell Prize Fellow, published her sixth collection of poems, Tristia, earlier this year. She is an award-winning author of 10 books that include memoir, essays, and criticism. Her work has been translated into several languages, gathered international praise, and has been widely anthologized. Carmen's memoir, Burying the Typewriter, was BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and she has been featured on NPR, , ABC, PRI and the BBC.