FINDING THE RIGHT SENTENCE with Smith Henderson

9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

3-Day Workshop

Writing is complicated. Character, plot, imagery, metaphor, voice…there is so much to master in order to make a piece of fiction. But all of the story’s effects are built out of words, out of simple sentences. A good sentence can reveal the hidden meaning of the story, be the key to unlocking a character, or set the tone for the entire piece. In this class we will discover how the act of simply focusing on the sentence, one after another, is the fundamental tool in every phase of writing. From first draft to deep revision to final polish, finding the right sentence is your only task.

Smith Henderson is the author of the debut novel Fourth of July Creek (Ecco), a 2014 New York Times Notable Book. It was the winner of the 2015 John Creasy (New Blood) Dagger Award and the 2014 Montana Book Award. It was also a finalist for the 2015 PEN Center USA Award for Fiction, the James Tait Black Prize, the Center for Fiction’s Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, the Ken Kesey Award for the Novel, and the Texas Institute of Letters Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction. The novel also made the longlists for the 2016 International DUBLIN Literary Award, the Folio Prize, and the VCU Cabel First Novelist Award. The book appeared on the Best Books of 2014 lists for The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, Kansas City Star, Book Riot and Powell’s Book Store.