Susan Cohen will lead a Point of View Writing Workshop May 15, 2019
Imagine a scene, any scene, ordinary or extraordinary. Perhaps it is a quiet moment at the local supermarket when a toddler in a shopping cart grabs a glass ketchup bottle while the parents aren’t watching. The bottle smashes to the floor and the child begins to cry and the parents begin to accuse each other of not watching the child more carefully, and a woman strolling by gets ketchup splashed on her new white dress, and the store manager has to find someone to mop up on aisle eight, and so on. Whose point of view do you follow? What point of view keeps your story alive? How close or faraway are you to the scene? What happens when you write the story from a Second Person point of view rather than a First Person Peripheral or Third Person Objective point of view?
This workshop asks participants to explore point of view using two of their own characters. Participants should come to class with a list of character traits for each character and be ready to set those characters in motion. The setting and point of view will be determined and explored during the workshop. Bring your pencil and notepad.
Susan A. Cohen Ph.D. is co-editor with Julie Dunlap of Coming of Age at the End of Nature: A Generation Faces Living on a Changed Planet (Trinity University Press, 2016), co-editor with Florence Caplow of Wildbranch: An Anthology of Nature, Environmental, and Place-Based Writing (University of Utah Press, 2010), editor of Shorewords: A Collection of American Women’s Coastal Writings (University of Virginia Press, 2003. She has published short fiction and poetry, nonfiction essays. Her can be found in Companions in Wonder: Children and Adults Exploring Nature Together (MIT Press, 2012), Women Writing Nature: A Feminist View (Lexington Books, 2008), Early American Nature Writers: A Biographical Encyclopedia (Greenwood Press, 2007). Cohen is a Professor of English and the Coordinator of Creative Writing at Anne Arundel Community College. She earned her M.A with an emphasis in Creative Writing and Ph.D. in American Literature at the University of Maryland.
This and all meetings are open to the public and free to MWA members and first-time guests. All others may pay $5.00. Annual dues to MWA are $40.00 and include other benefits on top of monthly attendance. MWA meetings meet the third Wednesday of every month at 7:00 p.m. in Room 205 at Maryland Hall, located at 801 Chase Street, Annapolis, MD 21401. For more information visit: http://www.marylandwriters.org