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SUMMARY:Poetic Transformations: Revising as Re-Seeing
DESCRIPTION:Most poets move through a process of honing our work. We draft\, workshop\, revise\, and polish our poems. But what possibilities await if we reframe revision as transformation? \n\n\n\nThis workshop will build a new toolkit for revising poetry—one that valorizes artistic possibility over the idea of a single finished draft. Together\, we will embrace each poem’s power to contain and reveal multiple versions of itself—versions that can stand alone or in conversation. \n\n\n\nThrough generative exercises\, craft wisdom\, and workshop-style feedback\, we will inhabit poet and composition scholar Wendy Bishop’s idea of radical revision. Each week\, we will enact experiments on our work to shake us out of the poems we thought we knew and into new stylistic territory. By embracing revision as an act of re-seeing\, we will confound our own expectations\, deepen into the inherent promise of our work\, and slough off stale writerly habits. A delightful\, productive defamiliarization may result. \n\n\n\nIf you’ve ever felt stuck\, not known how to revise\, or felt too attached to a draft to change it\, this workshop is for you. If you’ve ever wanted to create an inventive sequence of poems stemming from a single impulse\, this workshop is for you. If you’ve ever wanted to turn your linguistic sandcastle into a lexical dragon or syllabic shore bird\, this workshop is for you. \n\n\n\nThe strategies you will learn are designed to serve you both within and beyond the workshop. You can expect to leave the workshop with a newly articulated\, personalized philosophy of revision. You might leave with 8 radically different versions of a single poem. You might leave with a whole new sequence of poems that could scaffold a collection. Regardless\, you will leave with some substantially revised poetry along with the concrete tools and feedback to make future revision a process of expansive growth. \n\n\n\nThe workshop is open to practicing poets of all levels — with the following caveats: \n\n\n\n1) you must already be writing and revising poems; \n\n\n\n2) you must be willing to abandon the idea of single finished version of any given poem; and \n\n\n\n3) you must bring 3 to 5 of your own poems that you are willing to revise beyond recognition.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/poetic-transformations-revising-as-re-seeing/2026-04-06/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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SUMMARY:Sustaining Dramatic Tension in Long-form Fiction
DESCRIPTION:The feeling of losing an audience is one of the most terrifying experiences a theatre actor can have. With fiction writing\, the relationship to the reader is far less immediate but\, I would argue\, no less important. The energy created in the first pages of a novel begins a relationship between an author and her reader and must be tended throughout for the relationship to flourish. \n\n\n\nStories were spoken aloud long before they were written down. The ability to convey information in compelling packets is innate to all of us\, as important to human survival as hunting or farming. From the 911 call to a teen’s excuse for why their homework is late\, we are in a near constant state of story-making. But how to hold your reader’s attention for 300+ pages? \n\n\n\nThis workshop proposes to look at long-form fiction’s rules of craft through the lens of theatre to breathe new and exciting life into familiar concepts. It is open to writers at all levels; all aspects will be explained and explored in depth. Writing exercises and selected reading will supplement in-class discussions. \n\n\n\n1.   Week #1: Dramatic Tension – What is it? How is it created?  How is it sustained? From the actor’s toolkit: actions\, objectives\, obstacles\, tactics\, and super-objectives. \n\n\n\n\nWeek #2: Unity of Action – We will look at Aristotle’s definition of action and Shakespeare’s use of verbs to see how every action in every chapter of your novel is contributing to the larger overarching action of the novel.\n\n\n\n\n\nWeek #3: Causality – How to discern if a chapter or scene is following the scene before it out of necessity. When a novel is propulsive\, you can be sure the author understands causality.\n\n\n\n\n\nWeek #4: Character and the importance of contrast of characters.\n\n\n\n\n\nWeek #5: Show Don’t Tell and the actor’s version of this famous writing rule: acting is visual first.\n\n\n\n\n\nWeek #6: Language\, Diction\, and Tone – Style choices\, syntax\, and the nitty gritty at the line level.\n\n\n\n\n\nWeek #7: Writing Constraints as maps. How writing constraints allow you to access the buried treasures of your subconscious and still find your way back to your core ideas.\n\n\n\n\n\nWeek #8: Know Your Writing– Michael Crummey\, Toni Morrison\, and Louise Erdrich are three very different writers\, but they are each completely and consistently themselves. Who are you as a writer? Participants will be asked to bring in a longer sample of writing than for previous workshops. Through positive constructive feedback\, we will use the elements we have learned as a guideline to get a sense of where each writer’s strengths lie\, and what in their voice or style makes them uniquely themselves. \n\n\n\n\nExcerpts (2-4 pages) from the following works will be provided: The Poetics by Aristotle\, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch\, Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell\, Self-Help by Lorrie Moore\, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain by George Saunders\, Beloved by Toni Morrison\, Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich\, True Grit by Charles Portis\, Foster by Claire Keegan\, Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood\, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy\, Room by Emma Donahue\, Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout\, All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews\, and several Shakespearean monologues.
URL:https://qwf.org/event/sustaining-dramatic-tension-in-long-form-fiction/2026-04-06/
LOCATION:QWF Office\, 1200 Atwater Avenue\, Room 3\, Westmount\, QC\, H3Z 1X4\, Canada
CATEGORIES:QWF Workshops,Workshops
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