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Meet THe Team
Does your writing refuse to travel directly from point A to point B? Do you struggle to surmount the slippery slopes of Freitag’s Pyramid? If so, it’s time to set aside what you’ve been taught about plot and start exploring unconventional structures for your stories and essays. Inspired by Diane Lefer’s “Breaking the ‘Rules’ of Story Structure,” this class is for writers who are as interested “in the inner life as they are in outward action,” whose ideas flow by means of metaphor and association rather than strict chronology. Class readings will feature authors such as Charles Yu, Maggie Smith, Valeria Luiselli, and KB Brookins. Using wheels, waves, and mosaics as models, writers of memoir and literary and genre fiction will reinvigorate their storytelling by learning how to create unique shapes for their unique stories.
• In-Class Writing Lift: Light
• Homework: Optional
• Workshopping Drafts: Optional
Whitney Bryant holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her work is forthcoming in Shenandoah and has also appeared in The Georgia Review, One Story, and Chapter 16, and she is the fiction co-editor of the online journal Atlas + Alice: A Magazine of Intersections. In order to support her writing habit, she has taught literature and writing to high school students in Kentucky, North Carolina, and Virginia over the past fifteen years. She has recently completed a novel in stories. She enjoys exploring Nashville's arts scene and outdoor activities.
"Whitney was the perfect blend of encourager and teacher! She is also so skilled in bringing a class together."
"Whitney was fantastic at adapting to all of the different story ideas everyone had. Our group had a wide variety of genres and experience levels and she deftly found a link between every one of them and what we happened to be discussing at the time."
"I really loved Whitney's class! We were constantly encouraged to lead with curiosity, which I'll take with me outside of my creative practice."
