Writing from the Senses to the Senses

To write our characters and scenes in fiction, we need to put all our senses to work for the purpose of creating the same sensations in our readers.  But how do we do that when our medium is the printed word: monochrome scratches on paper or screen that engage only our sense of sight?

In this generative two-session workshop, we will delve into our senses in order to access them fully, then use words to move them from our own experience to our readers. 

Born and raised in Cleveland, Evan Fallenberg is the author of the novels Light Fell (Soho Press 2008), When We Danced on Water (HarperCollins 2011) and The Parting Gift (Other Press 2018) and a translator of Hebrew fiction, plays, libretti and films, including Meir Shalev's A Pigeon and a Boy, winner of the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction.  His work has won or been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Stonewall Award for Literature, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and the PEN Translation Prize.

Fallenberg currently serves as chair of the Department of English Literature and Linguistics and directs the MA tracks in Fiction and Literary Translation at Bar-Ilan University.  He co-founded and directed the Vermont College of Fine Arts International MFA in Creative Writing & Literary Translation, and was a regular faculty member of the City University of Hong Kong MFA program.  

Fallenberg is the recipient of residency fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and MacDowell (US), Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada), Fondation Ledig-Rowohlt (Switzerland), Sun Yat-sen University (China), Bogliasco Foundation (Italy) and the Writers’ Union of Iceland.  He founded the Translation Residency program at Mishkenot Shaananim in Jerusalem and Arabesque: An Arts and Residency Center in Old Acre.