Topics to be covered: building tension, developing characters, plotting, cross genre, fantastic vs. realism, importance of theme, hot topics in fiction, regionalism/sense of place, submitting/the market, fostering a unique voice, editing, and much more.

Books will be available for purchase at the event.

Bios:

Chaya Bhuvaneswar is a physician and writer whose debut story collection, White Dancing Elephants, was a best book of 2018 for Kirkus Reviews, included as a ‘best book’ for fall 2018 and the year by BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Vulture, Entertainment Weekly, The Rumpus, The  Millions, and many other publications. White Dancing Elephants was a finalist for the PEN American Robert Bingham story collection prize.  Her work has been published in Tin House, Narrative, Michigan Quarterly Review, Lit Hub, Electric Literature, Jellyfish Review, and elsewhere.

Tyrese L. Coleman is the author of the collection, How to Sit, a 2019 Pen Open Book Award finalist published with Mason Jar Press in 2018. Writer, wife, mother, attorney, and writing instructor, she is an editor at SmokeLong Quarterly, an online journal dedicated to flash fiction. Her essays and stories have appeared in several publications, including Black Warrior Review, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, and the Kenyon Review. She is an alumni of the Writing Program at Johns Hopkins University and a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow. Find her at tyresecoleman.com or on twitter @tylachelleco.