WJ221 Crafting the Short Story

WRITING THE 40-PAGE SHORT STORY

In celebration of WICE’s 40th anniversary, this course focuses on the “long” short story, of 40 pages or 10,000 words. It will help aspiring and experienced writers to produce stories of publishable quality, and to shape and refine their fiction according to their own vision, with emphasis on character, plot, setting and form.

Over six sessions, we will explore the principles of story-telling and sustained narrative, through in-class writing exercises, discussion and analysis.

The course is open to writers of all levels. Advanced guidance will be available for those interested in completing works in progress.

About the instructor: Alecia McKenzie is an award-winning short-story writer, novelist and journalist. Her first book Satellite City and her novel Sweetheart have both won Commonwealth literary prizes, and she was shortlisted for the 2015 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.  She has lived in the Caribbean, Asia and Europe, and is now based in Paris, where her latest book was recently published in French with the title Trésor (winner of the 2017 Prix Carbet des Lycéens).