NYC | Strange & Beautiful: A Writing Salon on the Inexpressible

Join Lit Society for a Writing Salon on literary “difficulty,” distinctive style, and the challenge of translating complex thoughts.
About this Event

Hosted by author, editor, and writing instructor , the evening will explore how writers of high style and density use language not simply to communicate ideas, but to express the complexity in the form of those ideas.

Through excerpts from Shakespeare, James Joyce, Herman Melville, Garielle Lutz, Virginia Woolf, and Christine Schutt, we’ll look at increasingly challenging passages and consider each writer’s unique approach to language. We’ll consider what makes a sentence feel dense, strange, beautiful, or resistant and what those qualities reveal about voice, consciousness, and literary expression. From there, we’ll turn toward our own writing. Through guided exercises beginning with sound, nonsense, and free association, we’ll gradually move toward more measured approaches to voice, rhythm, syntax, and style.

This event is for writers, readers, and curious minds interested in discovering how language can become a liberating, surprising, and personal expression of the mind, heart, and imagination. No prior writing experience is necessary.

WHAT TO EXPECT

• Cocktail and light bites
• A guided literary conversation with author and writing instructor K Hank Jost
• Readings from Shakespeare, James Joyce, Herman Melville, Garielle Lutz, Virginia Woolf, Christine Schutt, and more
• An exploration of how great writers use language to express complex thoughts, emotions, and ideas
• Creative writing experiments with sound, free association, rhythm, syntax, and style
• Guided exercises designed to help translate the complexity of your own inner world onto the page
• An intimate gathering of readers, writers, and culturally curious minds

Please note by attending this event, you consent to being photographed and filmed for commercial purposes. These materials may be used by the event organizers for future promotional, marketing, and media channels.