WU283 Writing Craft Talk: Settings Make Your Story

A convincing setting is not only a vivid backdrop for your narrative. Whether you write novels, novellas, short stories or creative non-fiction, setting can generate ideas for characterization and plot. Award-winning author Alecia McKenzie (who has worked in all of the above-mentioned genres) will explore the use of settings based on your current life, memory or research. A setting can be as glamorous as Paris or a humdrum village: in either case it can make your story come alive.

About the Instructor: Alecia McKenzie is an award-winning short-story writer and novelist. 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, when 22 stories from around the world were selected from a record 4,000 submissions. Born in Jamaica, she has lived in Asia and Europe, and is now based in Paris. She is also a professional journalist and accomplished painter, and edits SWAN, a web-site devoted to art and culture.