ExpiredGenre-bending Fun: Using theme words to write deeper and stranger fiction and non-fiction

The aim of the workshop is to find out if choosing a few theme words and using them as part of the structure of a story, might be a useful addition for your bag of writerly tools and tricks. In the workshop, we’ll look at how some writers have used theme words, or repeated words, to tell a story. Poets often say that using the constraints imposed by a particular form, for example, the repeated word pattern of a sestina, helps their imagination go to places it might not find otherwise.

We’ll try out using chosen theme words to write a story to see how that changes the way it feels to write it and read it. We’ll also try writing a draft and then choosing some keywords from that.  The story you work on in the workshop could be non-fiction, like an essay or some memoir, or it could be a bit of genre-fluid prose. It could also be fiction. If you like rules and patterns, you could try a prose sestina, or you can make up your own rules. If you’re a non-fiction writer and you’ve never heard of a sestina, or you thought it was too complicated to bother with, come along and see what the fuss is about. If you’re a poet, and you write essays or memoirs, come and try out one way the genres can fuel each other.