AFTERBURN
A Workshop in the Art of Flash Revision
Taught by Cleaver Flash Editor Kathryn Kulpa
3 weeks
August 8-29
$200
Class limit: 12
Questions: [email protected]
Flash fiction may be born in a lightning flash of inspiration, but crafting works of perfect brevity requires time and patience: sometimes cutting, sometimes adding, and sometimes starting all over again. In very short stories, every word must work, and revision is as much a part of writing flash as it is of writing longer prose. In this hands-on workshop, we’ll practice the art of revision. Flash fiction writer and editor Kathryn Kulpa will share first drafts, revisions, and published versions of her own work and that of other flash and short fiction writers. Students will learn different revision strategies and how to apply them to their own work. We will create new flash together and work on taking it through several revisions, and students will also have the chance to bring existing stories to the workshop to revise with a goal of publication.
I’m no longer afraid of the revision process. Kathryn arms you with resources, tools, and exercises that build confidence, then puts you in the editing chair with your own work and others. A well-paced, excellent class.
I loved having the ability to work on the material at my own pace, at my own time. I met several writers who I will continue to stay in touch with.
This was a great workshop that led me places I wouldn’t have otherwise gone. It also resulted in a recent publication. Woot!
I loved the prompts! And Kathryn’s astute feedback, of course!
Revisions are something I tend to ignore. I write pieces and let them sit and gather dust. This workshop helped me to think about writing as a process and not a one and done activity.
Some amazing exercises that I will use over and over for other projects!
Karen Rile is the author of Winter Music (Little, Brown), a novel set in Philadelphia, and numerous works of fiction and creative nonfiction. Her writing has appeared in literary journals such as The Southern Review, American Writing, Creative Nonfiction, Other Voices, Superstition Review, Tishman Review, and has been shortlisted among The Best American Short Stories. Karen has published articles and essays in The San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and others. She is the founding and chief editor of Cleaver and the Director of Cleaver Workshops.
Claire Oleson is the winner of the 2019 Newfound Chapbook Prize and a graduate of Kenyon College, where she studied English and Creative Writing. She has participated in graduate writing workshops with the Kenyon Review, where she also worked for the entirety of her undergraduate career. She has worked as a TA for Northwestern University’s summer creative writing courses. Her work has been published by the Kenyon Review online, the University of Kentucky’s graduate literary journal Limestone, the LA Review of Books, and Sugar House Review, among others. She currently serves as the poetry editor for Cleaver and lives and works in NYC.
Dinah Lenney has played countless roles on stage and television, from Lady Macbeth to ER’s Nurse Shirley. She’s a graduate of Yale, where she didn’t study theater, the Neighborhood Playhouse, where she did, and the Bennington Writing Seminars, where she presently teaches nonfiction. Dinah’s taught writing and acting in schools all over the country, and co-wrote Acting for Young Actors with director Mary Lou Belli. The author of The Object Parade and Bigger than Life, she also co-edited Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction with the late Judith Kitchen. Her latest book, Coffee, was published in Bloomsbury’s Object Lessons series. Dinah lives (reads, writes, grinds, brews—in a Chemex, by the way) with her husband in Los Angeles.
Drew Pham is a queer, transgender writer of Vietnamese heritage. A child of war refugees, her work centers on legacies of violence in times of conflict. She has published in Blunderbuss Magazine, McSweeny’s, Slice Magazine, Foreign Policy, Time Magazine, The Daily Beast, and Columbia Journal, among others. She lives with her two cats in Brooklyn, NY, and she serves as an adjunct English lecturer at CUNY Brooklyn College.
Claire Rudy Foster is an award-winning queer, nonbinary trans author from Portland, Oregon. Foster’s critically acclaimed short story collection Shine of the Ever was an O: The Oprah Magazine pick for 2019. Their essays, fiction, reporting, book reviews, and other writing appear in The New York Times, McSweeney’s, Allure, on NPR, and many other places. Foster is Senior Features Editor at The Rumpus. They still believe in the power of well-written sentences.
shea wesley martin is a fat, Black, queer, non-binary writer based in the mountains of Vermont. they write about the joy, pain, and triumph of being Black, queer, and not-quite-woman in and beyond this world. a freelance educator, they also research, consult, and write about creating and sustaining liberatory learning spaces.
Sydney Tammarine’s work has appeared in Ploughshares, LIT, Pithead Chapel, The Missing Slate, and other journals. She is the co-translator of a book of poems, The Most Beautiful Cemetery in Chile. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Hollins University and teaches writing at Virginia Military Institute. She has led workshops at The Ohio State University, Hollins University, Otterbein University, and at high schools, including as Writer-in-Residence at Appomattox Regional Governor’s School. She serves as flash and creative nonfiction editor for Cleaver.
