On Saturday, May 5, I am teaching a course at the amazing Grub Street Writers Conference: The Muse and the Marketplace. I am delighted to be included because this conference is pretty amazing. I like that they have courses in writing craft– hence the “muse”, and the business end, as well. If you are in Boston, I strongly encourage you to come by and take a few courses.
My contribution to the festival is a course on writing coming of age stories. When I last checked there were four places left in my class. So, there’s still time for you to join in. There are a lot of amazing other classes. And the guest authors are top notch.
Meanwhile, here is the description of my class:
The coming of age story is a mainstay of American fiction. It is full of possibility – so many of the most enduring works of literature – fall into this genre: To Kill A Mockingbird, The Bluest Eye, The Catcher in The Rye, Great Expectations, Black Boy, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. The popularity of the genre holds fast in both literary and commercial fiction, from Harry Potter to Twilight to Portrait of the Artist of a Young Man and The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint. All of these stories require the author to authentically recreate the voice of a child. This craft class is not a literature survey, rather it is a discussion of strategies to create young characters that are are both convincing and compelling.