For a $100 donation, Brilliant Flash Fiction is offering a rare 5-session online flash fiction workshop with Assistant Editor Ed Higgins, limited to 20 students. Don’t miss this opportunity to improve your flash writing with a master teacher, open to international students at all levels.
When: January 23, 2021; January 30; February 6; February 13; February 20 at noon Pacific Standard Time. Use this link to convert to your time zone: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html?iso=20201220T130000&p1=202
Where: Zoom address will be sent to you
Professor Emeritus and Lifetime Writer in Residence Ed Higgins has been teaching at George Fox University, Oregon, for over four decades. His classes have covered poetry, the modern novel, world literature, science fiction, and much more. Officially retired now, he submits and publishes flash fiction and poetry in numerous literary journals.
Read more about Ed HERE.
How to Enroll:
Step One: Donate $100 by scrolling down our Home page at brilliantflashfiction.com and clicking the Donate button on the right side.
Step Two: Email bffnonprofit@gmail.com with “Ed’s Class” in the Subject line. In 300 words or less, tell us why you love flash fiction writing. The best answer receives free tuition.
Step Three: We will contact you with details of the class, including Zoom addresses you will need to attend.
Enroll today and ensure your place in Ed’s virtual classroom.
Writing Flash Fiction Course Outline
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION:
Brilliant Flash Fiction’s online flash fiction workshop is a 5- session techniques-approach to flash fiction writing. Focus will be on the elements and craft of short-fiction writing, with specific attention to flash fiction’s underlying structure: draft generation, plot/conflict building, character presentation, dialogue, setting, point of view, figurative language, theme, and revision.
RECOMMENDED TEXT:
Hunger: The Best of Brilliant Flash Fiction, 2014-2019 available at: https://brilliantflashfiction.com/2019/10/30/hunger-the-best-of-brilliant-flash-fiction-2014-2019/ Note: all stories in this collection are available on our website, free of charge.
WORKSHOP GOALS:
–To develop an analytical familiarity with contemporary flash fiction.
–To learn several essential methods of flash fiction invention/writing.
–To learn the craft of honing flash fiction storytelling skills and techniques.
WORKSHOP CONTENT:
• • • Our 5-session weekly blocks will be given over to illustrations and discussion of story form techniques including assigned exercises in character development, plot/conflict, beginning/finding the story line, description/telling details, and reading like a writer.
Since this is a writing workshop we will write. And write some more. I will provide exercises focusing on various fiction techniques with maddening frequency. You can never write enough. As short story writer and sardonic wit Dorothy Parker once noted: “I can’t write five words but that I change seven.” A truism: there is no good writing, only good rewriting.
• • • Analysis and discussion of flash fiction models from various sources will occur in each session. These flash models will be provided prior to being discussed in class.
• • • Your writing will be regularly discussed with suggestions for improving and further development. A necessary–but sometimes not painless–experience. We are an audience of listener/learners together. You’ll need to trust this process.
WORKSHOP REQUIREMENTS:
• • • Assigned weekly exercise assignments will be due each session. Story exercises should be readable files that can be uploaded and shared at our Zoom sessions (or in some cases emailed to workshop members).
• • • There will be frequent in-class writing exercises or “prompts.” Revision or further development of such can be used in follow-up sessions.
• • • Meetings will generally be given over to workshop style reading-response sessions. While not everyone will read every time you are required to bring a worked-on piece of writing or assigned exercise to share with others in the workshop.
• • • Remember, “It” doesn’t happen without your participation in our writing/learning community. Do participate as fully on and off sessions as your time allows.
BRILLIANT FLASH FICTION 