About

Writing with Scissors! It’s January 2020, let’s break a few things! (Plus, all the cool kids are doing it.)

In this course, students will learn to generate writing and experiment with form using literary techniques inspired by collage, mosaic, and kintsugi. Students will complete several exploratory prose pieces that they will use as material, along with items they discover throughout the class or bring from home. Close attention will also be paid to the narrative strategies of writers who have utilized these techniques, such as literary rockstars like Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Anne Carson, Scott Russell Sanders, David Shields, Renata Adler, Maggie Nelson, Eula Biss, and Sherman Alexie, among others.

In his book Reality Hunger (2010), David Shields defines collage as “the art of reassembling fragments of preexisting images in such a way as to form a new image.” Collage writing loosens us up. Kintsugi (the Japanese art of reassemblage, highlighting the cracks) and Mosaic techniques develop our skills of intuitive structure. 

Whether we consider ourselves to be makers, poets, essayists, memoirists, artists, musicians, or storytellers, we can benefit from abandoning preconceived notions. Let’s embrace the blurring of genre and sharpen our skills to create more intuitive, organic structures in our writing. There’s no better time than right now to shake things up!

Tuition assistance is available. Click here to apply.  

Instructor:

Eliza Tudor is a writer, editor, and teacher new to Bainbridge Island. Her stories have appeared in PANK, TLR, Hobart, Annalemma, Paper Darts, and The Conium Review, among others. Her novella, Wish You Were Here, won the 2017 Minerva Rising Press Novella Prize and was published by that press. With an MA in English and an MFA in Writing, Eliza has taught both at the University-level, and in community-based workshops throughout the United States. She’s worked in publishing and continues to work as a freelance editor. She also reads your submissions to Quarterly West magazine. You can find more at www.elizatudor.com.

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