Flash Fiction: A Weekend Intensive. Robert Anthony Siegel, Instructor

IOWA SUMMER WRITING FESTIVAL

 

Spring, 2023

 

 

Start Your Memoir (Weekend Workshop)

 

Anthony Robert Siegel, Instructor

 

Dates/Time

 

Friday, June 9–Sunday, June 11, 2023

Introductory Meeting and Overview, Friday on Zoom:

 

· 7:00–8:00 p.m. Iowa/Central Time

· 8:00–9:00 p.m. Eastern Time

· 5:00–6:00 p.m. Pacific Time

· 6:00–7:00 p.m. Mountain Time

 

Workshop Meetings, Saturday & Sunday on Zoom:

 

11:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m. Iowa/Central Time

12:00–5:00 p.m. Eastern Time

9:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m. Pacific Time

 

10:00 a.m.–3:00 a.m. Mountain Time

 

 

Just a page or two in length, flash fiction is quick and easy to learn, yet endlessly rich and challenging to practice. Flash can be realistic or fantastic, heartfelt or ironic, as simple as a fairytale or as fragmented and allusive as a postmodern novel. Its singular power is the sense of imaginative freedom at its core—the “flash.” World renowned writers like Kafka and Kawabata have done some of their most evocative work in the genre.

 

This intensive weekend course is designed for writers who want to explore the creative possibilities of flash fiction. We will talk about the origins of flash and how it works, read a variety of published examples, and generate work of our own through in-class and take-home exercises. We will share our writing with the group.

 

Friday night we meet for an hour to go over the schedule and introduce ourselves; Saturday and Sunday we meet for five hours: four hours of instruction with a one-hour break in the middle. There is (completely optional) homework on Saturday night: write a flash fiction to share with the group on Sunday.

 

What you will do over the weekend:

 

· Write in-class and take-home flash exercises

· Read published flash fiction

· Share work with the group

 

What you will learn:

· The origins and types of flash fiction

· The role of conflict in creating story

· The power of image and metaphor

· The relationship between text and subtext

 

What you will take away:

· At least one new work of flash fiction

· A list of ideas for at least ten others

Instructor

Robert Anthony Siegel is the author of a memoir, Criminals (Counterpoint,) and two novels. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian Magazine, The Paris Review, The Drift, The Oxford American, Tin House, and Ploughshares, and has been anthologized in Best American Essays 2023, O. Henry Stories 2014, and Pushcart Prize XXXVI. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan, a Mombukagakusho Fellow in Japan, a Writing Fellow at FAWC in Provincetown, and a Paul Engle Fellow at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a BA from Harvard. His website is www.robertanthonysiegel.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 10.

 

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

 

 

 

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