Here’s a press release for a workshop I’ll be doing in La Grande, Oregon on April 28.
BEYOND CATEGORIES: FINDING YOUR PLACE IN SPACE AND TIME
A Phantom Drift fiction workshop, “Beyond Categories: Finding Your Place in Space and Time,” with acclaimed short story writer, Ray Vukcevich, will be held on April 28th from 2 – 5 p.m. at Arts East White House Gallery on the corner of Sixth and L in La Grande followed by a free public reading at Cook Memorial Library Community Room at 7:30 p.m.
“Beyond Categories” is the second workshop sponsored by Phantom Drift Limited, a non-profit organization dedicated to building an understanding of and appreciation for fabulist literature. The workshops were made possible in part due to a grant from Union County Cultural Coalition.
In this workshop, Vukcevich will be talking about Interstitial Art, New Weird/New Fabulism and what people are calling Sudden or Flash fiction. Examples of this kind of fiction can be found in the Interfiction anthologies and Sudden Fiction International. “My basic idea is that people can free themselves up to write what only they can write given that they are the only ones in that particular time and space and life situation,” Vukcevich said. Through some basic writing with prompts and exercises that demonstrate how to get in close to the things that really concern the individual writer, the Eugene writer hopes to show that “innovation in art comes from finding things that only you can say and then saying them.” Participants will learn to reach places that are more receptive to cross-genre, toss-out-the-rules approaches to short fiction.
There is a limit of ten participants for the workshop. A $25 fee is being charged. Checks or money order can be made payable to Phantom Drift and sent to Phantom Drift, PO Box 3235, La Grande, OR 97850.
Registrants should also include their name, address and email for confirmation.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch says Vukcevich’s stories “engage the mind and the heart. He even makes grocery lists interesting…one of America’s best writers.” His latest story collection is Boarding Instructions (2010, Fairwood Press). Other books include Meet Me in the Moon Room (2003, Small Beer Press) and a novel, The Man of Maybe Half-a-Dozen Faces (2001, St. Martin’s Press). For a bibliography, visit: www.rayvuk.com
His story, “The Problem of Furniture” appeared in the first issue of Phantom Drift (October 2011).
Phantom Drift Limited is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting an understanding of and appreciation for fabulist literature.
For more information on the workshop, you can contact David Memmott, Managing Editor of Phantom Drift at: phantomdrifteditor@yahoo.com
