$50
1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
State Library

This workshop will focus on the fundamentals of the creative process for fiction writers who aspire to create enduring literature.

It will address such issues as what is art; what is distinctive about the way the artist addresses the world, the inner self, and the objects to be created; and what are the essential characteristics of fiction as an art form. It will also deal with more practical matters, such as how to pre-plan a novel without sacrificing its spontaneity and how to edit and revise without losing touch with the creative unconscious. There will be ample opportunity for a free-flow of questions from attendees in order to address specific needs and interests.

Depending on available time and the group’s preferences, there may be a chance to do an in-class coached writing exercise. Please bring a laptop with you to the class.

Robert Olen Butler has published eighteen novels and six volumes of short stories, one of which, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He was the seventeenth recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He also won The Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He is a Guggenheim Fellow. He has twice received a National Magazine Award in Fiction and has been chosen for inclusion in four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories and eight annual editions of New Stories from the South. His works have been translated into twenty-one languages, including Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Farsi, Czech, Estonian, and Greek. Butler’s book on the creative process, From Where You Dream is widely used in creative writing classes. He is a Krafft Distinguished Professor holding the Michael Shaara Chair in Creative Writing at Florida State University.