Event

Dialogue Do's and Don'ts with James Magruder

Between the words of an actor and the pages of a story, dialogue has a different job to do. This workshop will cover a few objectives and strategies as a way to demystify- and even promote- its use. Learn how to embed action and move plot with dialogue, handle dialogue for multiple characters in a scene, and reveal characters swiftly through opposing viewpoints. Magruder's experience writing for the stage will lend itself to a discussion of the complex differences between dialogue in theater and literature: there are advantages, lessons, and connections to be made between the forms.

James Magruder's fiction has appeared in New England Review, The Gettysburg Review, Subtropics, The Normal School, Bloom, New Stories from the Midwest, and elsewhere. His debut novel Sugarless was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the 2010 William Saroyan International Writing Prize. His story collection, Let Me See It, was published this June by TriQuarterly Books. He is a four-time fellow of the MacDowell Colony and a five-time recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the Maryland State Arts Council. He teaches dramaturgy at Swarthmore College and fiction at the University of Baltimore.

How to Write Like I Do is a new writing workshop series for adults, brought to you by the good people at 826DC. Looking for a way to kick-start your writing? Interested in continuing an old project that's fallen by the wayside? We hope to bring the same kind of enthralling and effective workshops to the older set as we've been known to deliver to the younger. All ticket proceeds go to supporting the free creative and expository writing programs for kids offered by 826DC.

Interested in attending all four workshops? Buy a season pass with us and enjoy two full months of writing workshops for creative folks. (http://826dcseasonpass.bpt.me)