Announcing Book Club Workshop!

I’m teaching a class, you guys

(cross-posted from my Substack)

One curiosity I’ve had since childhood is what it’s like to live another life, and the ritual that lets me do it is reading. I used to get a little carried away. (Apparently you’re not supposed to read novels at the dinner table, or during math.)

Fast-forward to my adulthood and reading still occupies most of my time. I’ve read thousands of published books by this point. Between client projects and my acquiring editor days, I’ve also read hundreds of not-yet-published books.

So many unpublished novel manuscripts (that have beautiful prose, interesting settings, and charming characters) feel like they’re missing some subtle, subterranean wiring. Readers can watch a character experience a big emotion but not necessarily feel invested or emotionally impacted ourselves—especially if we haven’t been primed to hope for or dread any specific actions or outcomes.

Plot points are satisfying when (forgive me)…they don’t just fall out of a coconut tree. When they exist in the context of all in which they live and what came before them.

I’m saying you can get tricky and go back and reverse-engineer that context.

You know who’s great at doing that? Poets! For poets, the structure of a work (how it is told) is essential to the meaning of the work. So when poets write novels, those novels tend to be cool as hell. They satisfy reader cravings for structure but often in unusual ways.

I could teach a class on this, I thought. Participants could read two different novels as part of a wider study on structure—and, through that study, create outlines for their own novels. A book club, but not a regular book club. A workshop, but not a regular workshop.

This idea has been turning over in my mind for months now. I made a syllabus but tucked it aside for a rainy day, then took

Esmé Weijun Wang’s excellent workshop on online workshops (more of her classes here) and decided that the time is now. (Thank you, Esmé!)

Book Club Workshop is born!

This first iteration is focused on novels by poets, specifically Monarch by Candice Wuehle (which I had the pleasure of acquiring and editing for Soft Skull Press) and Candelaria by Melissa Lozada-Oliva (which I had the pleasure of reading and enjoying). We’ll also talk about some poems, John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story, and Jane Alison’s Meander, Spiral, Explode.

Class meets on Zoom and starts August 13th. Candice and Melissa will join as special guests for the final class on October 22nd! (You could have a full outline in time for NaNoWriMo.)

~ * ~ Full deets here. * ~ *

I’d really appreciate help spreading the word if you can!