Tuesdays 7-9 pm CST

August 1-August 29 2023

$150 suggested price, sliding scale of $100-200

Dialogue is the most powerful tool in a writer’s arsenal. Think about everything that happens when we talk, how much we reveal of ourselves. If actions speak louder than words, as the saying goes, we also live in our talk. 

But if you’ve ever tried to transcribe a conversation, you know how hard it is. We want dialogue to be like it is in life, but the vast majority of our conversation is filled with halts and pauses, cliches and imprecise phrases that get at but don’t really say what we mean. In life, dialogue is elliptical. Often, we express what we want by not asking for it. We repeat ourselves, using nothing words like huh, um, or like. 

How do we artfully render dialogue that is lifelike, that captures the halting imprecision of spoken dialogue without being halting or imprecise? How do we craft dialogue that reveals character and drives the action forward, directly and indirectly expressing motive, while still sounding like the ways we actually speak? And how do we render it with the craft and economy fiction requires?

This five-week workshop for writers of all levels explores strategies for writing exciting, compelling, believable dialogue in short- and long-form fiction.

What You’ll Learn:

– Through targeted exercises, we will explore principles of dialogue in dramatic writing.

– Each of these exercises will potentially yield a new story, so the workshop will also be generative.

– These strategies should invigorate writers’ practices and freshen existing work during revision.

I’m based in New Orleans and currently work as a freelance editor, book coach, and consultant. My short stories, book reviews, and interviews have appeared widely, including in Best American Mystery Stories 2012. I won the 2019 Gold Medal for Best Novel-in-Progress from the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society.

I have years of experience working both as a teacher, a creative writing instructor, and working one-on-one with clients to develop and polish their manuscripts. I have taught at institutions including San Francisco State University, Northwest Arkansas Community College, and the New Orleans Writers Workshop.

You can find more about me here.