November 3, 2018 - Chaffee County Writers Workshop!

**WHAT:** [Chaffee County Writers Workshop:](http://www.CCWritersExchange.org) "Small Wonder: Object Lessons for Small Fictions"

**WHEN:** Saturday, November 3, 2018 - 9:30 .m. to 3:30 p.m. - 9:00 a.m : Check-in time!

**WHERE:** Presbyterian Church, 7 Poncha Blvd, Salida, CO

**WHO:** Our fabulous facilitator will be nationally published and award-winning writer, Carol Samson

This workshop will focus on the writing of small fiction, a genre defined as the use of a small space to create a complete and dense picture, the writing of a short piece that employs complex emotions and, sometimes, an unexpected or powerful ending. While similar to “flash fiction” in length, small fiction does not demand short scenes or plot; it approaches methodologies of poetry, tracing a significant idea or playing with language rather than focusing on a constructed story. Small fiction, then, to my mind, is form of wool gathering. It is the collecting of bits of story and images brought by different messengers. To facilitate our exploration of this genre, the workshop will look at objects that prompt thought and memory. We will find ways of allowing the face of the object to reveal itself and, in turn, ways of situating the object in a place or a “hollow” that allows for the discovery of the texture of the work. Hopefully, we will come to see that the writing of the small fiction is a process of ceaselessly pondering and arranging, and that, as John Berger explains, what seems like creation is really the act of giving form to what we have received.

Carol Samson is a Professor Emerita from the University of Denver. She holds a Ph.D. in English/Creative Writing from DU and was a founding member of the DU University Writing Program. She has published stories in several literary journals including the Ghost Road Press, Black Ocean Press, and Manzano Mountain Review. One of her stories, “Even the Stones,” was published in a short story anthology Open Windows, which won the Colorado Book Award in 2007. A playwright and short story writer, she adapted and directed The Diaries of Virgina Woolf for the 2008 International Virginia Woolf Conference and, most recently, adapted and directed Kent Haruf’s The Tie that Binds (2015) and Plainsong (2017) for productions in Salida, Colorado.

**REMEMBER TO BRING:** Paper & pen or laptop, and a yummy treat to share with all for our potluck lunch.

**IMPORTANT NOTE:** Please be respectful of the group and refrain from wearing perfumes or colognes as some attendees have allergies. Thank you!

**EVENT REGISTRATION:** $45 for Non-Members; $30 for CCWE Members. Visit our website for registration forms and membership information.

Hope to see you there!

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