When we write fiction, we create realities. As such, the realities we experience on the page often have a great deal to do with point of view and its vast possibilities. How does a narrative mind work? In any given sentence, where is the language coming from? What IS omniscience, anyway? In this workshop, Michael Zapata (author of The Lost Book of Adana Moreau and founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine) will guide writers through inquiries into narrative distance and POV, and discuss craft techniques and artful strategies found in cinematography, stream of consciousness, omniscience, and multiplicity, among others, to create works of fiction that both create and bend reality. The workshop will also include a writing exercise and a Q&A.
Michael Zapata is a founding editor of MAKE Literary Magazine and the author of the novel The Lost Book of Adana Moreau, winner of the 2020 Chicago Review of Books Award for Fiction, finalist for the 2020 Heartland Booksellers Award in Fiction, and a Best Book of the Year for NPR, the A.V. Club, Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage, among others. He is on the faculty of StoryStudio Chicago and the MFA faculty of Northwestern University. As a public-school educator, he taught literature and writing in high schools servicing drop-out students. He currently lives in Chicago with his family.
