WordTango's Disobedient Fiction with Jenny Shank
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 May 12th–14th, 2017

If you've taken fiction writing classes, you've discovered many general writing rules—show don’t tell, don’t have long blocks of narrative, avoid clichés like the plague. In this class, it’s time to break the rules. Working from thought-provoking exercises, and studying how disobedient masters, including Alice Munro, Donna Tartt, and Zadie Smith successfully “break” rules, this class will teach you to take charge of your writing and find your own unique voice and style.

​This generative workshop, follows our popular two-day weekend format. Class includes written "lectures" and writing prompts designed by Jenny Shank, discussion threads where you can interact Jenny Shank and your fellow classmates, and an opportunity to share your work with your fellow classmates. By the end of the weekend, students walk away new skills for their writers' toolbox. 

Jenny Shank 's novel The Ringer (The Permanent Press, 2011) won the High Plains Book Award in fiction, was a finalist for the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association's Reading the West Book Awards, was a Tattered Cover Book Store Summer Reading 2011 selection, and was a finalist for the Book Pipeline competition. Her stories, essays, satire, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications includiding The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Washington Post, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Onion, Poets & Writers Magazine,  She has won writing awards from the Center of the American West, the Montana Committee for the Humanities, SouthWest Writers, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She has taught creative writing at the University of Colorado, the Lighthouse Writers Workshop, and the Boulder Writing Studio, and she is on the faculty of the Mile High MFA at Regis University in Denver.  
-Biography taken from jennyshank.com. Follow the link to learn more.

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Praise for Our Classes

WordTango's Weekend Flash with Kathy Fish was just what I needed, an invaluable introduction to short creative nonfiction, a form I'd been intrigued with but not sure how to approach. In one short, intense weekend of drafting, revision, with guidance from Kathy and support from an engaged and talented cadre of fellow writers, I worked on several shorts, one of which was subsequently published in "Split Lip Magazine." An all-around amazing, empowering, challenging writing opportunity at a bargain price!   
-Dorothy Rice

Bravo to Lee Martin and the team at WordTango for packing a semester’s worth of tips into a weekend workshop on flash CNF. Martin’s insightful lectures, prompts to get the juices flowing, and personal feedback are gifts that I’m sure will keep on giving as I try my hand at the little gems this genre can produce.    
-Mary Ann McGuigan    

WordTango's Weekend Query class helped me break down the daunting task of writing a query letter into manageable parts. Not only were Ellen's lectures extremely valuable, but the hands-on prompts she gave for writing hooks and queries are tools I'm thrilled to now have in my writing arsenal. After this class, my query is exponentially better! The interaction and feedback from Ellen and my fellow classmates was invaluable as well.
-Julie Zuckerman


 

 WordTango's Weekend Flash with Lee Martin was amazing. Lee Martin led us through the steps of Flash CNF with wisdom, respect, and encouragement. He made the course accessible for novice AND veteran writers--scaffolding us along as we built our stories. It was extremely useful for fiction writers as well, for his prompting unearthed stories filled with the moral complexities that make characters, real or imagined, unforgettable. Thanks WordTango for facilitating this great weekend of writing with Lee Martin. He is a master craftsman and he tells great jokes to boot!
-Jolene McIlwain

Kathy Fish and the folks at WordTango provided all the elements for one of the most generative, productive writing weekends I've had in a long, long time. Kathy's exercises helped me to drill down to the heart of what flash really is, and got me back on track towards completion of my story collection. And what a skilled, supportive community of writers were in the class! Thank you all so much!
- Jason Shults.

​For me it wasn't just the good advice on creating a winning query letter, it was that the whole process--the lectures, the class interaction, the feedback from Ellen--helped me understand my book better. It will be a better book now.
​–Andrew Tibbetts