Plot Is Not A Four-Letter Word – A Story Workshop with Thomas Pierce

3-Day Workshops
Wednesday – Friday, May 3 – 5 | 2:30 – 5:30 p.m.

Plot is sometimes sneered at by literary fiction writers.  A necessary evil, it’s often called.  A way to hold the reader’s attention.  But in a fundamental sense most stories are nothing more than a simple sequence of events, a build-up of distinct moments—scenes, images, thoughts, things said and not said—and it is only in their accumulation that the story assumes meaning and coalesces into something more than the sum of its parts.  In this workshop, we’ll look at your stories through the prism of plot, tension, movement, and escalation.

Thomas Pierce was born and raised in South Carolina. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Oxford American, and elsewhere. A graduate of the University of Virginia creative writing program, he lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with his wife and daughter.