JOIN US FOR AN AFTERNOON OF WRITING INSTRUCTION AND DISCUSSION
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | Pre-registration Suggested (432) 837-2621 | Refreshments Provided
Killer Killer Plots: Building Tension & Creating Conflict in Fiction
How do you create compelling characters and put them in memorable conflict? Meg Gardiner, author of thirteen acclaimed thrillers, will talk about heroes, villains, and the hook, and discuss techniques to ramp up the suspense and tension in your story.
Her novels have been bestsellers in the U.S. and internationally, and have been translated into more than 20 languages. China Lake won the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. The Dirty Secrets Club was chosen one of the Top Ten Thrillers of 2008 by Amazon. The Nightmare Thief won the 2012 Audie Award for Thriller/Suspense Audiobook of the Year. Her latest novel, Phantom Instinct, was chosen one of O, the Oprah magazine’s “Best Books of Summer.”
Moving Beyond Fact: The Role of Imagination in Memoir
As memoirists we are concerned with mining our past, yet history and fact often fail to convey the enormity of felt experience. In this discussion we will explore ways in which writers use imagination and outside materials to enrich and deepen personal narrative.
Donna M. Johnson is the author of Holy Ghost Girl, a critically acclaimed memoir deemed “enthralling” by the New York Times and “compulsively readable” by Texas Monthly. Oprah named the book to her Memoirs We Love list. Holy Ghost Girl won the Mayborn Creative Nonfiction Prize and took top honors at the Books for a Better Life Awards in Manhattan. Donna has written for Huffington Post, The Rumpus, Shambhala Sun, Psychology Today, and other publications. Her work has been collected in the Her Texas and Beyond Belief anthologies. Donna is a Ragdale Fellow and was recently awarded a fellowship at the Lucas Artist Residency. She is currently at work on a second memoir.
With a grant from the Tocker Foundation