A Sentence as Clean as a Bone: Refining Your Flash Fiction

Amy Hempel says, "I do feel that if you can write one good sentence, then another good sentence, and then another, you end up with a good story." James Baldwin says, "You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal." Refine the building blocks for your own brief writing in this two-hour course with editor-in-chief of Electric Literature and winner of the 2022 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize Denne Michele Norris, in which she will guide you through writing cleaner sentences for more skillful and affecting flash fiction.

Instructor: Denne Michele Norris is the editor-in-chief of Electric Literature, winner of the 2022 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. She is the first Black, openly trans woman to helm a major literary publication. A 2021 Out100 Honoree, her writing has been supported by MacDowell, Tin House, and the Kimbilio Center for African American Fiction, and appears in McSweeney's, American Short Fiction, and ZORA.

Her short story Last Rites appears in Everyday People: The Color of Life, an anthology published by Atria Books in 2018, and her story Daddy's Boy appears in the new anthology Forward: 21st Century Flash Fiction. Her fiction has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her story Where Every Boy is Known and Loved was a finalist for the 2018 Best Small Fictions Prize. She is a 2019 Peter Taylor Fellow at The Kenyon Review Fiction Workshop.

She is the former Fiction Editor for both Apogee Journal and The Rumpus, and is co-host of the critically-acclaimed podcast Food 4 Thot. Her debut novel, When The Harvest Comes, is forthcoming from Random House.

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Details: A Sentence as Clean as a Bone: Refining Your Flash Fiction takes place Tuesday February 27 from 6:30-8:30 PM remotely online via Zoom.

Prerequisite: None

Genre: Fiction

Level: All levels

Format: Craft talk

Location: This class takes place remotely online via Zoom.

Size: Limited to 35 participants

Scholarships: Two scholarship spots are available for this class for writers in Northeast Ohio. Apply by December 11.

Cancellations & Refunds: Cancel at least 48 hours in advance of the first class meeting to receive a full refund. Email info@litcleveland.org.

Registration Fee

$45 - Non-Member Registration

$30 - Registration with Member Discount

I'd also like to help out other writers with a donation to the Word for Word Scholarship Fund. (This fund provides low- and limited-income writers in NE Ohio with access to our classes)

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