WM181 Paris Vignettes: How to Capture Revealing Moments, Encounters and Events

Course Description: 

This 5-week writing workshop allows participants to hone their writing skills though the creation of vignettes: short scenes that focus on a moment, a character, an encounter, an idea or a place.

Our experiences and encounters in Paris are too often interpreted or recorded in terms of tourism and clichés. By understanding how to create vignettes, writers are able to go beyond that by examining moments, encounters and events that reveal far more about life, travel, place, strangers, our relationships and ourselves.

Though the emphasis of this workshop will be on vignettes of up to 1500 words, participants will learn the importance of scene work that will then enhance their writing of longer works of fiction, non-fiction and memoir. The techniques of a successful vignette are also extremely useful for those interested in writing unique blogs.

Participants will complete and then rewrite at least one vignette per week.

Instructor: Gary Lee Kraut is the editor of the online travel and culture magazine France Revisited, www.FranceRevisited.com. He is the author of five travel guides to France and Paris as well as numerous articles, essays, short stories, and op-ed pieces concerning travel, culture, cross-culture and expatriate life. He has taught creative writing and travel writing and has lectured extensively in the United States and France.