The foundational aspects of plumbing a house do not start with roughing in water lines or PVC, and they certainly don’t include the fancy ornamental sinks or shower heads. All of that comes later. To plumb a new house, start to finish, we first need to dig trenches to lay cast iron, which ultimately will flow to the city sewer line. Then the concrete foundation, exterior walls and, suddenly, we see the outline of a house emerge. Throughout this generative workshop, we’ll be digging our own trenches and building our foundation. We’ll focus on character and setting, conflict and empathy – critical aspects of all good fiction. We’ll read contemporary short stories from Kenyon Review, Narrative and other literary journals as blueprints for how to incorporate dialogue, action, desire, conflict. We’ll read, discuss and write. We’ll dig, pour and build.
Keith Lesmeister is the author of the story collection We Could’ve Been Happy Here. His fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, Gettysburg Review, New Stories from the Midwest, North American Review, Redivider, SLICE and many others. His nonfiction has appeared in The Good Men Project, River Teeth, Sycamore Review, Tin House Open Bar, Water~Stone Review and elsewhere. He received his MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and he serves as editor of Cutleaf. He lives in Iowa’s Driftless region.
The Zoom link will be provided upon registration. Cost is $150 for SCWA members and $200 for non-members.
