Each session of this course includes a written lecture, a writing assignment to turn in for instructor feedback, and creative exercises to further your learning.
Session 1: Writing the Beginning
Session 2: Pacing the Middle of Your Story
Session 3: How to End
Session 4: Revision
What will you learn?
Who should attend?
Meet the instructors
Ran Walker
Ran Walker is the author of sixteen books, has written novellas, short stories, flash fiction, microfiction, and poetry, and his work has appeared in a variety of anthologies and journals. Prior to becoming a writer and educator, he worked in magazine publishing and practiced law in Mississippi.
He is the winner of the 2019 National Indie Author of the Year Award (selected by judges from Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, IngramSpark, St. Martin's Press, and Writer's Digest); the 2019 Black Caucus of the American Library Association Best Fiction Ebook Award; and the 2018 Virginia Indie Author Project Award for Adult Fiction. He is also the recipient of both a 2005 Mississippi Arts Commission/NEA artist grant and a 2006 artist mini-grant. He served as an Artist-in-Residence with the Mississippi Arts Commission in 2006. Additionally, he is a past participant in the Hurston-Wright Writers Week Workshop and is the recipient of a fellowship from the Callaloo Writers Workshop.
His novel Mojo's Guitar was translated by renowned French translator Philippe Loubat-Delranc and published in April 2015 by Éditions Autrement as Il était une fois Morris Jones, and was republished in May of 2019 as a part of Éditions Autrement's "Les Grands Romans" collection. His first collection of poetry, Most of My Heroes Don't Appear On No Stamps: Kwansabas, will be published in August of 2019 by The University of Hell Press.
A graduate of Morehouse College, Pace University, and George Washington University Law School, Ran is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Hampton University and lives in Virginia with his wife and daughter. Follow him on Twitter @ranwalker.
John DeChancie
John DeChancie is the author of two dozen books, both fiction and nonfiction. His novels in the science fiction and fantasy genres have been attracting a wide readership for more than fifteen years, and over a million copies of his books have seen print, many in foreign languages. His humorous fantasy series, beginning with Castle Perilous, became a best seller for Berkley/Ace. Booklist described John’s novel MagicNet (William Morrow) as “a welcome sigh of comic relief…shamelessly droll, literate, and thoroughly entertaining. Magicnet is the fantasy genre’s whimsical answer to Neuromancer.” John’s other science fiction novels include From Prussia With Love (Prima Publishing), Masterminds of Falkenstein (Prima Publishing) and Innerverse (Avon), as well as his anthology of original fantasy short stories co-edited with Martin Greenberg—Castle Fantastic (DAW Books)
In addition to science fiction and fantasy, John also writes horror and nonfiction; his articles “A Fresh Look at This Island Earth” and “A Tribute to Rocketship X-M” can be found in Cult Movies). His short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and in numerous original anthologies, including Spell Fantastic (edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff, DAW Books) and, most recently I, Alien edited by Mike Resnick (DAW Books), which contains John’s short story “The Loaves and the Fishes.”
His book Other States of Being: Sixteen Short Abductions, is a collection of stories, reprinted from various magazines and original paperback anthologies, that all explore the theme of the alien (offered as a print-on-demand title by Pulpless.com, Inc.). His latest book is a small press short story collection A Little Gray Book of Alien Stories published by Borderlands Press, Maryland.
John’s novel Witchblade: Talons was republished by iBooks (Simon and Shuster), and the entire Castle Perilous series and the Starrigger trilogy were recently published in translation in Russia.
