Creating Urgency in a Story—a class with Karen E. Bender

Join National Book Award Finalist Karen Bender for a one hour class in which she talks about plot, and how to create urgency in a story. We will first examine stories by Raymond Carver, Octavia Butler and Yoko Ogawa, looking at the way they create questions in a narrative. We'll discuss the idea of The Octopus Moment, or creating a 3-D structure in a story. Then Karen will read openings from her new collection, The Words of Dr. L. giving you an insider look at the way a writer creates an effective opening. And you'll have time to generate your own story openings and share them if you'd like! Ticket price includes a copy of the book.

Karen E. Bender is the author of the story collections The New Order and Refund, a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. She is also the author of the novels Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, Story, Harvard Review, The Yale Review, The Iowa Review, and other magazines. Her stories have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, and New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, and have won three Pushcart prizes. She has won grants from the Rona Jaffe Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught for numerous MFA programs and is currently a visiting writer for the Stony Brook University MFA in creative writing and on the core faculty for the Alma College MFA program.

Host or Publisher Liz’s Book Bar