2024 Lecture Series
February-December 2024
$75
$65
Virtual (Zoom)
Hone your craft in 2024 with six lectures from One Story authors on the craft of fiction. With live Zoom lectures from Fatima Kola, Michael Kardos, Anya Johanna DeNiro, Jackie Thomas-Kennedy, Gina Chung, and Alice McDermott.
Lectures are an hour and fifteen minutes each and take place live on Zoom where students can watch the lecture and join the discussion. Can’t attend live? Students will receive access to the recording for one year after the purchase date of the lecture series.
About Our Next Lecture
Join us for the sixth and final lecture in our 2024 Lecture Series on Saturday, December 7, from 4-5:15pm ET with Alice McDermott, author of OS #280, “Post.” Alice will be lecturing on revision.
Is This as Good as You Can Make It? with Alice McDermott
Revision can be illuminating, but it can also be paralyzing: when does not good enough become not bad, when does not bad become brilliant, and when does the pursuit of brilliance become the dawn of despair? A discussion about the endless challenge to write better sentences, better scenes, better characters, better stories.
To purchase this lecture (and only this lecture) go here.
About Alice McDermott:
Alice McDermott is the author of nine novels, all published by FSG, including Charming Billy, winner of the National Book Award, and That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This, which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of the essay collection What About the Baby?: Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and other publications. She lives outside Washington, DC.
Schedule & Lecturer Bios
All lectures will be held from 4-5:15pm ET.
Saturday, February 17: Fatima Kola
Kingdom of the Sick In this lecture we will explore how, as a matter of craft, writers have rendered physical pain and illness on the page. Virginia Woolf spoke of illness as language-defying — if so, how can writers of prose render the experience of being ill using language, and how can they access the interior mind of the sick person? We will look at examples of successful prose, and talk about how we might replicate, in our own work, the strange and lonely experience of being ill.
Saturday, April 20: Michael Kardos
How Do I End This Thing? Every story is different—that’s the beauty of stories—and yet they all share one feature: at some point, they end. Ideally, our stories end with that coveted trifecta of unexpectedness, inevitability, and resonance. But how do we do it? In this lecture, we’ll explore strategies other authors have used to bring their stories to a satisfying, compelling finish (as well as pitfalls to avoid), and see how we can apply these lessons to our own work.
Saturday, June 15: Anya Johanna DeNiro
The Unsettling Craft of Speculative Fiction Writing speculative fiction–which encompasses everything from science fiction, fairy tales, magic realism, surrealism, and more–creates a unique relationship between reader and writer. In this lecture we will look at how this mode of writing upends stability and a sense of fixed identity. We will look at the stories of writers like Kelly Link, Ursula LeGuin, and Rivers Solomon to understand the techniques of speculative fiction, and how writers can create whole worlds in just a few sentences. We will also practice our own craft in creating places that act as characters in their own right, and then exploring how to write “the alien”–and how that alienation intersects with building believable (or unbelievable) characters.
Saturday, September 21: Jackie Thomas-Kennedy
Would Someone Really Say That? Dialogue and Character with Jackie Thomas-Kennedy
In this lecture, we’ll look at two related components of fiction writing: creating complex, multilayered characters and writing believable dialogue. Dialogue is often full of misunderstandings among its participants—sometimes willful, sometimes not—and we will read with particular attention to the way writers develop distinct voices on the page. We’ll complete exercises focused on finding our characters, and there will be opportunities to write dialogue as well.
Among the works we are likely to discuss are stories by Claire Keegan, Chris Drangle, Zadie Smith, Deborah Eisenberg, and Brandon Taylor.
Saturday, October 26: Gina Chung
Tempo and Rhythm: Manipulating Time in Fiction with Gina Chung
Fiction is one of the few art forms that deals directly with the nature of time and its relentless forward motion, and in our increasingly frenetic world, a storyteller’s ability to speed up time and burn through plot is often prioritized above other factors. But fiction can allow us to become masters of time, and this lecture will discuss how, through tempo and rhythm, we can not only speed up, but also slow down, freeze, or collapse time at will. We’ll examine works from Jessica Au, K-Ming Chang, Raven Leilani, Toni Morrison, and Sterling HolyWhiteMountain, and also experiment with moving through time through generative writing exercises.
Saturday, December 7: Alice McDermott*
*Note: This lecture has been rescheduled. It was formerly November 16
About Fatima Kola:
Fatima Kola was published in One Story in 2015. She holds an MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, and from 2019 to 2021 was a Stegner Fellow. She was a 2015 shortlistee for the Caine Prize for African Writing, a Miles Morland Foundation Grant holder in 2017, and a resident at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris in 2023. She served as the editorial assistant for the O. Henry Prize for three years, and along with One Story, her short fiction has been published by Granta, New Contrast, The Guardian, and Zoetrope: All-Story. Fatima is currently a writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University, where she teaches writing about illness, and is completing her first novel about haunted bodies, loneliness, and the river Thames.
About Michael Kardos:
Two-time Pushcart Prize winner Michael Kardos is the author of the novels Bluff, Before He Finds Her, and The Three-Day Affair, an Esquire best book of the year. His short stories have appeared in One Story, The Southern Review, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and elsewhere, and were collected in the book One Last Good Time, which won the Mississippi Institute of Arts & Letters Award for fiction. Michael is also the author of The Art and Craft of Fiction: A Writer’s Guide. He has degrees from Princeton University, Ohio State, and the University of Missouri, and co-directed the creative writing program at Mississippi State University for 16 years. He currently lives in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
About Anya Johanna DeNiro:
Anya Johanna DeNiro is a writer living in St. Paul, Minnesota. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia. Her most recent book is the novel OKPsyche from Small Beer Press. Her fiction has appeared in One Story, Catapult, Santa Monica Review, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. Her work has been on the Honor Roll for the Otherwise Award (for explorations of gender in speculative fiction), a finalist for the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and shortlisted for the O. Henry Award.
About Jackie Thomas-Kennedy:
Jackie Thomas-Kennedy (OS 276, “Extinction”) was awarded a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University in 2014. She is the winner of the 2019 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize, and her story “Sledding” is a 2023 Narrative Story of the Week. Her work has been recorded for NPR’s Selected Shorts, and her stories have appeared in American Short Fiction, One Story, Electric Literature, Lenny Letter, Narrative, Bennington Review, and elsewhere. Her reviews have appeared in The Washington Post, Harvard Review, Star Tribune, The Millions, and on the Ploughshares blog. She has been a MacDowell fellow twice and is the recipient of fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, Yaddo, Ucross, and Saltonstall. She holds an MFA in fiction from Columbia University School of the Arts. Her debut novel, The Other Wife, will be published by Riverhead in spring 2025.
About Alice McDermott:
Alice McDermott is the author of nine novels, all published by FSG, including Charming Billy, winner of the National Book Award, and That Night, At Weddings and Wakes, and After This, which were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. She is also the author of the essay collection What About the Baby?: Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and other publications. She lives outside Washington, DC.
How It Works
When you register, you’ll be enrolled in a portal on Thinkific, our online learning platform, which will give you access to Zoom links for the upcoming lecture along with any reading you’ll need to complete in advance of the class. This is also where the videos will be uploaded after the lectures take place.
FAQ
When can I register for this class?
Registration will open soon and remain open through December 6, 2024.
Will I be able to interact with the lecturers?
Yes. Students will be able to ask questions and chat with lecturers during the live lectures. There will be no instructor engagement once the lecture concludes.
How much time will the class take?
Each lecture runs between one hour to one hour and fifteen minutes.
Can I take the class on my phone?
Yes, the class can be taken on a phone.
Do you offer financial aid or scholarships for this class?
If the cost of the class is a significant burden, please email edu.support@one-story.com
Troubleshooting FAQ
I paid for the class but never received an email with a class link.
Please visit one-story.thinkific.com/ and enter your email and password. The class should appear on your Thinkific student dashboard. Remember that you will need to use the email address associated with your One Story account. Do not create a new Thinkific account.
I paid for the class but I forgot/don’t know my Thinkific password.
Visit one-story.thinkific.com/ and click “Forgot Password.” Enter the email address connected with your One Story account. Do not create a new Thinkific account.
Discounts & Policies
Our online classes are designed to be safe spaces for all who participate. One Story will not tolerate hate speech, bullying, or harassment directed toward instructors or fellow students, and reserves the right to remove participants who engage in such behavior from our classes.
Patron Discount: In order to qualify for our patron discount, you must be a member of our patron circle at the time of registration. Patrons commit to annual donations and receive benefits that allow them to participate in our non-profit organization in more meaningful ways. Not all One Story subscribers or supporters are patrons. If you’d like to find out more about becoming a patron, you can do so here.
Refund Policy: One Story class payment is non-refundable after the class’s start date. For this class, refunds are no longer available after 2/17/24. For questions about the refund policy, or if you are unable to take the class after you have registered, please contact maribeth@one-story.com.
If you have any questions, please contact edu.support@one-story.com.
