SUNDAY 8 SEPTEMBER | INSTORE EVENT
10am - 1pm | HALF DAY WORKSHOP
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP
Like a writer, fiction has its own voice – a voice that can be hard to find. Toni Morrison has said ‘Instead of saying something general about [a character], I would say, "I wonder what that is?" and then try to see the world the way they might see it. So that you enter the world instead of hovering over it and trying to dominate it and make it into something. You have to have that kind of absence of hostility—absence of anything. You should do it for every character.'
Perhaps you have an idea for a story but no idea how to tell it? An existing story that doesn’t seem to speak to you anymore? A character who doesn’t have anything to say? Or maybe you’re seeking the answer to that ever-elusive question: what is my writer voice?
Join the short story obsessed Laura Jean McKay in a short fiction workshop to find voice – the author’s voice, the story’s voice and the character’s voice – through readings, exercises, sharing and discussions.
ABOUT THE TUTOR
Laura Jean McKay is the author of The Animals in That Country - winner of the prestigious Arthur C Clarke Award, The Victorian Prize for Literature, the ABIA Small Publishers Adult Book of the Year and co-winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Science Fiction Novel 2021. Laura is also the author of the collection Holiday in Cambodia and an Adjunct Lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University. She was awarded the NZSA Waitangi Day Literary Honours in 2022. Her latest collection is Gunflower, named one of The Guardian’s best books of 2023.