Learn the skills to identify precisely the right word to express your meaning, feeling, or subtext. Participants will look at examples in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, and discuss what makes an expression fresh rather than expected, where and how to find the mot juste (the exact, appropriate word), and why precision can succeed in getting your work noticed. Mine your bookshelves and come to class with one or two brief passages in which the author uses language with an evocative precision.
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About Virginia Hartman
Virginia Hartman’s novel The Marsh Queen will be published by Gallery/Simon & Schuster in May 2022. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in many publications, including the Hudson Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, and the Washingtonian, and her work has been anthologized in Gravity Dancers: Even More Fiction by Washington Area Women (Paycock Press). Her writing has been supported by the Sewanee Writer’s Conference and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She holds an MFA from American University and teaches creative writing at George Washington University as well as here at the Writer’s Center.
Teaching Style: If it’s fun for you, it’s fun for me. I lead the workshop so that it resembles our writing—focused, creative play. I’m interested in building community in the session and beyond.
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