CRAFT TALK: EMILY NEMENS ON FRIENDSHIP

On the third and final day of , join novelist and former editor of The Paris Review for a Craft Talk on writing friendships.

CLASS DESCRIPTION

Friendships can be some of the most important relationships in our lives—though in real life and in literature, they often play third fiddle to romantic entanglements and familial obligations. In this generative workshop, we’ll look at fiction and poetry that foreground friendship and imagine how platonic relationships can inspire and expand our creative work. The class will include in-class readings and discussions of pieces by Jamel Brinkley, Mary McCarthy, Ross Gay, Khalil Gibran, and Emily Brontë. Examples will be combined with generative prompts, so please bring writing tools.
WHAT YOU WILL LEAVE WITH

• A new understanding of friendship in literature
• Evergreen prompts for articulating relationships and their complexity
• Strategies for building narrative around friendship
• Tools to build compelling characters and relationships

ABOUT EMILY NEMENS

Emily is a writer, editor, illustrator, and educator. Her debut novel, The Cactus League, was published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in 2020 and released in paperback by Picador in 2021. Her second novel, Clutch, was published by Tin House/Zando in February 2026. Both books were New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selections. From 2018 to 2021, Emily served as the editor of The Paris Review, the nation’s preeminent literary quarterly. During her tenure, the magazine won the 2020 American Society of Magazine Editors’ Award for Fiction, published two anthologies, and produced the second season of its acclaimed podcast.

ABOUT THE ROUGH NOTES FESTIVAL

Presented by Kinderhook Books, the three-day event is, at its core, a literary festival—but it also celebrates the craft of writing in all its forms: songwriting, stand-up comedy, screenwriting, art, design, and more.
SPONSOR

This Craft Talk is sponsored by The Rough Notes Fund for Rural Literary Education, allowing us to offer the class at no cost to attendees. Attendance will be taken, and the $50 registration fee will be refunded to the original payment method within seven days after the class for all students who attend. Eventbrite fees and applicable taxes are nonrefundable. The $50 registration fee will not be refunded to students who do not attend.