Uncanny Realities: A Generative Fiction Workshop with ‘Pemi Aguda
Tuesdays, November 12-December 3
7pm-9pm ET
Online (Zoom)
$275
$225
Mundane daily life can be a surprising inspiration for delicious strangeness in fiction: A child-free woman finds baby clothes in her dryer. A knife salesperson is followed by a rat around New York. A grieving man on a night bus notices that people who enter the bathroom do not return.
In this four-week generative workshop, students will mine fiction and their own lives for inspiration for stories that veer into the surreal, but are not defined by it. Through a series of guided exercises and readings, participants will create first drafts or build out works in progress.
We will read and discuss stories by Helen Oyeyemi, Yohanca Delgado, Diane Cook, Yoko Ogawa, and Nishanth Injam to analyze how tone and mood, perspective, language, and other craft elements evoke strangeness.
While there will be a focus on short stories, this class is ideal for writers of all skill levels who are interested in writing fiction of all lengths.
While verbal feedback will be given in response to the work students create and share during our sessions, the feedback won’t be quite as in-depth as in a traditional workshop model where students turn in work in advance of the class meeting.
We have a limited number of scholarships for the class. Scholarships cover 50% of tuition. Recipients will be selected at random. You can apply for one here. The deadline to request a scholarship is Tuesday, October 29. We will notify all entrants by Tuesday, November 5.
About ’Pemi Aguda:
’Pemi Aguda is an MFA graduate from the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan and the winner of the 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Award. Her writing has been published in One Story, Granta, Ploughshares, American Short Fiction, Zoetrope, and other publications, and was awarded the O. Henry Prize for short fiction in 2022 and 2023. She is the author of a collection of stories, Ghostroots (W.W. Norton, 2024; Virago Press, 2024; and Masobe Books, 2024). ’Pemi is from Lagos, Nigeria.
Schedule
Tuesday, November 12: 7-9pm ET
Tuesday, November 19: 7-9pm ET
Tuesday, November 26: 7-9pm ET
Tuesday, December 3: 7-9pm ET
Policies
Our 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.
Full refunds are available through November 4. Partial refunds (50%) are granted if the class is dropped within one week of the class start date (November 5-10). Payment is non-refundable on or after the class’s start date. For questions about the refund policy, or to receive a refund, please contact edu.support@one-story.com.
If you have any questions, please contact edu.support@one-story.com.
