What should we do when we have the urge to write our stories but can’t figure out how or where to start? This all-levels, interactive workshop provides strategies for those seeking to answer this question. Our main strategy? Start small.

Our spirit animal for this class will be the hummingbird. The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly forward, backward, sideways, and, for short distances, upside down. Precisely because they are so small, hummingbirds can do things other birds can’t. Likewise we’ll look at tiny texts and study the things that they can do because they are small. How can attention to the tiniest literary creations challenge and inspire us?  How can writing small trick us into writing our big stories?

Our time together will be a mix of craft talk, including insight into varieties of word-hummingbirds such as the monostich, the 6-word memoir, the aphorism, the ten-second essay, and the American Sentence. We’ll also cover the top ten things I’ve learned from writing tiny texts before rolling up our sleeves and generating my favorite short form: the user-friendly micro-memoir, an exciting hybrid that combines the extreme brevity of poetry, the narrative arc of fiction, and the truth-telling of creative nonfiction. We’ll be sure to save time for sharing our work with our fellow writers.