Yet many of us routinely set out to build stories and novels without doing any of those things. In this workshop learn the basic building blocks of solid fiction, how to plan your novel and how to gather the materials you will need (three-dimensional characters, vivid settings, a solid plot) to make a novel that will stand the test of time.

Kim McLarin is the author of three critically-acclaimed novels, Taming It Down, Meeting of The Waters and Jump At The Sun, all published by William Morrow. Jump at the Sun was chosen as a 2007 Fiction Honor Book by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. It was also nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and chosen by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association as a 2007 Fiction Honor Book. She is a former staff writer for The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Associated Press.  Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, Glamour, The Washington Post, The Root, Slate.Com and other publications. She is an associate professor in the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing at Emerson College in Boston.