Description
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a fan of Jane Austen must be in want of a workshop...
For anyone interested in storytelling and craft, this class with Maine author and fiction instructorJudson Merrill will investigate Jane Austen’s writing, through both discussion and practice. We will spend the morning studying Austen’s writing style, primarily using her novel Emma. What was different about her novels than those that came before? Beyond her subject matter, how was she building sentences or crafting scenes or managing time that was new and novel? What is distinct or characteristic about her writing? How does she create humor, mood, character, emotional intensity?
In the afternoon, we’ll apply the techniques we examined in the morning, using Austen’s style to capture relationships, desire, and responsibilities from our own lives. Our goal will be exploratory and generative, not artistic. Applying Austen’s techniques will help us understand them better—and be fun. No pressure to craft a literary masterwork that endures for hundreds of years.
I'm so pleased to be welcoming author, professor, and my good friend Judson Merrill to Alewives for the very first time, especially as he debuts his latest novel, Paranoid Fiction. Inspired by the way the novel began—as a fraud and a thief, stealing and repurposing popular storytelling forms—Judson seeks to make visible the changing and dangerous ways we tell stories. He has taught writing for the past 15 years, at Brooklyn College, the University of Southern Maine, and privately. His work has appeared in The Iowa Review, Chicago Review, The Massachusetts Review, and numerous other publications. He has been an Artist in Residence at Millay Colony, Ox-Bow, Lighthouse Works, Hewnoaks, and Guild Hall. He is currently co-producing a film he wrote about coming of age in an anxious, demented country.
Whether you're a seasoned writer, dying to dabble, a quilter looking to inform your practice through a different art form, or simply an ardent admirer of Austen, this workshop is most extraordinary and not to be missed.