The Virginia G. Piper
Center for Creative Writing

New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole presents his three-week program for preparing yourself to write a novel. This set of 21 exercises is broken down to give you everything from character creation to world building, practical plotting devices, dialogue development and character voice creation tools. This program is a practical, kick-in-the-pants place to start your career.

In this brief virtual residency, you will learn all about targeting the right agent for your work. These seasoned instructors will cover everything from research methodologies to testing your first pages and query letters. Over the course of two days Yi Shun and Tiffany will put their experience and talents to work in helping students to workshop their query letters. Within that time, students will participate in three zoom lectures, engage in multiple breakout rooms, and complete several projects. Here are the elements of each day. 

Would you like to share your life experience with the world? Crafting a memoir book or essay can be tough if you never tried it before. This workshop was created to make that process easier and more fulfilling for you.

Let’s start by answering the first and most important question: what is a memoir? To put it in simple words, a memoir is a book or an essay that tells a real-life story in an interesting and compelling way. Its main goal isn’t to share historical information, but rather to put the reader on the author’s shoes and make them feel what the author felt.

With NanoWrimo going completely virtual this year, the Piper Writers Studio is teaming with Phoenix NanoWrimo to create a virtual space for Nano authors to come together and discuss their work. This space is available every Monday throughout the month and free to all who need it.

In this talk, we’ll explore the craft of writing fiction that doesn’t move—fiction contained in a single, discreet space as large as a house, and as small as a bed—and the implication it has for our understanding of gender, characterization, and plot. Stories discussed will include Angela Carter’s “The Fall-River Axe Murders,” Susan Glaspell’s “A Jury of Her Peers,” Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour,” and Nancy Hale’s “The Earliest Dreams.”

Machado will also be presenting a talk and reading the previous day.