Show and Tell: Summary and Scene in Fiction and Memoir. Karen Bender, Instructor

Registration opens on Wednesday, January 22, 2025.

 

IOWA SUMMER WRITING FESTIVAL

 

Spring 2025

 

Show and Tell: Summary and Scene in Fiction and Memoir (Weekend Workshop)

 

Karen Bender, Instructor

 

Dates/Time

 

Friday, April 25–Sunday, April 27, 2025

 

Introductory Meeting and Overview, Friday on Zoom:

 

• 7:00–8:00 pm Iowa/Central Time
• 8:00–9:00 pm Eastern Time
• 5:00–6:00 pm Pacific Time
• 6:00–7:00 pm Mountain Time
  

 

Workshop Meetings, Saturday & Sunday on Zoom:

 

• 11:00 am–4:00 pm Iowa/Central Time
• 12:00–5:00 pm Eastern Time
• 9:00 am–2:00 pm Pacific Time
• 10:00 am–3:00 am Mountain Time

 

Saturday and Sunday meetings include a one-hour break. Class meets for four hours each day.

 

Fee: $350

 

 

Course Description

 

It’s a common refrain in workshops—show, don’t tell. But what’s wrong with telling? What do you need to show? This class will go over the strategies of scene vs. summary, or showing vs. telling, to convey information to the reader. We will read stories by writers including Zadie Smith, Ernest Hemingway, Anthony Veasna So, Tillie Olsen, Mavis Gallant, and Jhumpa Lahiri. We will spend part of each day discussing how writers use summary vs. scene effectively, and the function of time in fiction and memoir. We will go over concepts such as floating time, scenic moments, and active summary. Students will be able to practice using scene and summary in generative exercises both Saturday and Sunday. Students will leave the class with a deepened understanding when and how to use summary and scene in stories.  

 

 

Instructor

 

Karen E. Bender is the author of the story collections Refund, which was a Finalist for the National Book Award in 2015, shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Story prize and Longlisted for the Story prize; and The New Order, which was Longlisted for the Story prize. Her novels are A Town of Empty Rooms and Like Normal People, which was a Washington Post Best Book of the Year. Her fiction has appeared in magazines including The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, The Yale Review, The Harvard Review, Guernica, and Story, and reprinted in Best American Short Stories, Best American Mystery Stories, New Stories from the South: The Year's Best, and have won three Pushcart prizes. She has taught at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and also in the M.F.A. programs at Hollins University, Warren Wilson College, the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and Chatham University. She has recently joined the Core Faculty at the Alma College M.F.A. in creative writing. She has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rona Jaffe Foundation. Visit Karen at www.karenebender.com.  

 

 

 

Registration & Fees

 

The fee for this course is $350. Payment in full is required to register.

Registrations are accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Class size is limited to 12.

 

Note: Your credit card payment will be processed by an external provider and will appear on your credit card statement as “UI Writing—Magid Center.”

 

Refund & Cancellation Policy

 

If you need to cancel your enrollment, please let us know as soon as possible. We can only offer full refunds if you cancel one week prior to the start of class. After that, before the start-date of class, we can offer a 50% refund. We cannot refund day-of cancellations, and we cannot refund or partially refund registration fees once the class has begun.

 

Terms & Community Policy

 

1.  The Iowa Summer Writing Festival is a program for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to enroll in Festival workshops.

 

2.  The Iowa Summer Writing Festival is a community built on an assumption of shared enterprise, in the spirit of mutual respect. We reserve the right to a) revoke the registration of or b) dismiss from the program any person who disrupts the learning/working environment of others. Participants in the Festival are subject to all University of Iowa policies governing conduct in our community, whether online or in person.

 

Questions?

 

Contact the Iowa Summer Writing Festival: iswfestival@uiowa.edu. Phone: (319) 335-4160.

 

Our small staff is out and about. If you phone and we miss you, please leave a detailed message!