Tuesday, February 6th & 13th

5:30PM-7:30PM Phoenix MST
Location: Zoom
(The link will be sent out the morning of. Be sure to check your Spam folder.)

What to expect at a glance:

• Learn how horror can be key to uncovering compelling dramatic scenes and emotions
• Discover how indulging in the fantastic can bring you closer to your real stories
• Explore dramatic techniques for engaging and startling audiences through your fiction

Course Description:

We think of horror as that which makes us afraid, but the genre also deals intimately with grief and loss. Much of the greatest horror is also deeply sad: think of Toni Collette's iconic scream in Hereditary, an expression of almost primal sorrow, or the desperation of a grieving father in Pet Sematary. And what dark magic animates every zombie story, if not mourning for something essential to our own humanity? In this workshop, we'll discuss examples of grief in horror literature and cinema, examining how the specter of devastating loss can be used to generate fear. Then we'll apply what we've learned to our own writing through a series of generative exercises drawing on personal experience. By delving into what we value and what we have to lose, we'll practice writing horror that's not just spine-tingling, but heartbreaking.

About the instructor:

Lindsay King-Miller is the author of Ask a Queer Chick: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life for Girls who Dig Girls (Plume, 2016). Her fiction has appeared in The Fiends in the Furrows (Nosetouch, 2018), Tiny Nightmares (Catapult, 2020), The Jewish Book of Horror (Denver Horror Collective, 2021), Fireside Fiction, Baffling Magazine, and numerous other publications. Her debut novel, The Z Word, is forthcoming from Quirk Books in 2024. She lives in Denver, CO with her partner and their two children.