S174.
The Inside Connection: The Possibilities and Pitfalls of Linked Story Collection
Saturday, March 11, 2023
12:10 pm to 1:25 pm
Writing a linked story collection has its particular challenges (and joys!). We’ll look at the craft questions associated with the process, such as the range of wildly different techniques used to build such a collection (for example: a single character who appears in all the stories versus thematic connections versus a single setting or time period); the issue of story order; the search to find a title, and the pressure to turn such a collection into a novel (or not).
Participants
Jonathan Escoffery is the author of the linked story collection, If I Survive You. He is the recipient of the Paris Review's Plimpton Prize, the ASME Award for Fiction, and a NEA fellowship. He is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.
Lydia Conklin has received a Stegner Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, three Pushcart Prizes, and a creative writing Fulbright in Poland. They are an assistant professor of fiction at Vanderbilt. Their book Rainbow Rainbow was published by Catapult in May 2022.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You: Stories, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and We Cast a Shadow: A Novel, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize.
Shruti Swamy
