Master Class: Writing Fact and Reality into Fiction with Nicole Dennis-Benn
Master Class: Writing Fact and Reality into Fiction with Nicole Dennis-Benn
2 Sessions: Thursdays, August 14 + 21
7:00-8:30pm ET
Nicole Dennis-Benn
Nicole Dennis-Benn is an award-winning novelist whose books place working-class Jamaicans, especially women and queer folk, at the center of the universal human experience. Her debut novel, HERE COMES THE SUN, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2016 and was recently listed as a New York Times Most Notable Book of the decade. PATSY, her second novel, was a Today Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick and a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and was named best book of the year by TIME, Oprah, People, NPR, among others. Nicole was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, Pen/Faulkner Award in Fiction, and a two-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award Fiction Prize. Her highly anticipated third novel, acquired by Random House, is forthcoming.
How much research do we need to get it right? How do we discern how much factual details to incorporate into a story without weighing it down? When do we give ourselves creative license? This course is for anyone who has those questions.
We'll discuss selected works and supplemental readings to aid our discussions on technique/craft in relation to shaping your story. Excerpts of other books and stories will be listed as we go along to better aid your individual storytelling process.
Workshop Highlights:
How much research do we need to get it right?
How do we discern how much factual details to incorporate into a story without weighing it down?
When do we give ourselves creative license?
Nicole Dennis-Benn is the author of Here Comes the Sun (Norton/Liveright, July 2016), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and a 2017 Lambda Literary Award winner. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Soraya McDonald describes Nicole Dennis-Benn's debut as reminiscent of the work of Toni Morrison. Her bestselling sophomore novel, Patsy (Norton/Liveright, June 2019), is a 2020 Lambda Literary Award winner, a New York Times Editors' Choice, a Financial Times Critics Choice, a Stonewall Book Awards Honor Book, and a Today Show Read With Jenna Book Club selection. Patsy has been named Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, TIME, NPR, PEOPLE Magazine, Washington Post, Apple Books, Oprah Magazine, The Guardian, Goodhousekeeping, BuzzFeed, ELLE, among others. "Patsy fills a literary void with compassion, complexity and tenderness," raves Time Magazine; and NPR names Dennis-Benn "an indispensable novelist".
In addition to being a two time Lambda Literary Award Winner for her novels Patsy and Here Comes the Sun, Dennis-Benn is a recipient of the National Foundation for the Arts Grant. She was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize; and has recently been long-listed for The Pen/Faulkner Award in Fiction and short-listed for the Aspen Words Literary Prize.
Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Elle, BuzzFeed, Electric Literature, Lenny Letter, The Rumpus, Catapult, Red Rock Review, and Kweli Literary Journal, Mosaic, Ebony, and the Feminist Wire. Her popular New York Times Modern Love essay, “Who is Allowed to Hold Hands” was narrated by 15-times Grammy Winning artist, Alicia Keys on Apple’s Modern Love podcast. Nicole Dennis-Benn has previously taught in the writing programs at Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, NYU, Sarah Lawrence College, and City College; and has been awarded fellowships from MacDowell Colony, Hedgebrook, Lambda, Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Hurston/Wright, and Sewanee Writers' Conference.
Dennis-Benn was born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. She is a graduate of St. Andrew High School for Girls and Cornell University; and holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Michigan and an MFA in Creative Writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Dennis-Benn is the founder of the Stuyvesant Writing Workshop and lives with her wife and two sons in Brooklyn, New York.
