Exploring Community Through Interlinked Story Form with Ramona Reeves
Exploring Community Through Interlinked Story Form with Ramona Reeves
Monday March 27th
5:30-7:30PM Phoenix MST
This course will focus on the interlinked short story form, and in particular, why it's suited to exploring community. The course first will define the interlinked form and how it differs from a novel or even a novel told in stories. We'll look at some examples of the interlinked form, including Lot by Brian Washington and Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. We'll delve into why writers might use interlinked collections to connect characters, themes, and place, rather than writing a novel, which can accomplish similar things. Students will learn ways to use the interlinked form to explore community, which we’ll define together, and the importance of managing time, white space, and themes to coalesce community exploration. Students can expect to leave this course knowing how to define an interlinked collection (in as much as they can be defined, which we will discuss), the advantages of using this form, and a reading list for further study that will provide models for writing an interlinked collection. The course will include a lecture, examples, and time for questions and is suited to fiction writers familiar with the short story form.
About Ramona Reeves
Around and Other Stories (University of Pittsburgh Press), won the 2022 Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Her book was highlighted as one of several award-winning collections to read by The Washington Post. She has been awarded an AROHO fellowship, a residency at Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, a scholarship from Community of Writers, and the Nancy D. Hargrove Editors’ Prize. She also has served as an associate fiction editor for Kallisto Gaia Press. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Southampton Review, Bayou Magazine, Pembroke, Superstition Review, New South, Texas Highways and others. She holds an MFA in fiction from New Mexico State University and currently lives in Texas with her wife.
