This 6-week workshop is for anyone attempting to make invented people and events real using words. Members will meet weekly (Thursdays at 6:30 p.m., August 23–September 27) to read one another's work, and help it become the best version of itself. We'll consider the craft of fiction from the cellular level of words and sentences to the mysterious forces that transform a situation into a story. We'll break down stories into their elements — character, conflict, tone, voice, perspective, tension, etc — in order to see how they succeed or fail. Along the way, we may also generate new writing with prompts and exercises, and turn to the masters for guidance, reading the stories of writers such as Grace Paley, Jamaica Kincaid, Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Yiyun Li.
PLEASE NOTE: To participate in this workshop, you must commit to 1) attending every session to the best of your ability, 2) submitting one work in progress (up to 25 pages) to the group, and 3) attentively reading and giving feedback to fellow writers' work every week. Participation also includes a private conference with the workshop leader.
***If you are NOT a Ruby member, please email staff@therubysf.com with the subject line "Fiction Workshop" and a note introducing yourself and why you want to take this workshop, along with a 10-page writing sample. The cost to attend this six-week course is $375.
About Meng Jin
Meng Jin has degrees from Harvard and Hunter College, where she received her MFA in fiction. Before moving to SF she taught creative writing and literature in New York City, where she worked with the Hunter College English department to develop fiction writing curricula for marginalized voices. Her short fiction has been published in Ploughshares, The Masters Review, The Bare Life Review, The Arkansas International, and elsewhere, and she is currently finishing her first novel. A Kundiman Fellow, she has received fellowships and grants from Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, M on the Bund Shanghai, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and the David TK Wong Fellowship. Starting fall of 2018, she will be a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University.