Denne Michele Norris

Lingering, enduring, meaningful fiction is built on a singular foundation: the relationship between the writer and the reader. It is in that porous space where the author offers their hand and the reader takes it, agreeing to be led through every kind of emotional terrain imaginable—joyous, heartbreaking, comical, tragic, and more. The reader entrusts their safety to the author, who promises not to bungle that trust. When we are successful, we bring readers along on a fiercely intimate journey, facilitating a space where the biggest of raw feelings, of all stripes, are allowed to thrive—indeed, are taken seriously. A space where a reader might stop and think to themself, “Whoa. I’ve felt that way or had that thought myself.” This allows a reader to feel seen, heard, and validated in some particular way, perhaps for the first time. It is a genuine, intimate, human connection. But how do we get to that point when, as writers, we may not be sharing the same space or time as our readers? How do we open ourselves on the page as writers, and how do we earn the trust of a reader so that they might open themselves to our work? How do we create that intimacy? In this craft course, we will use various elements of the craft of fiction—voice, POV, character, to name a few—to better discern how we might approach building intimacy and trust with readers in our own fiction. Writers we read may include Elizabeth Strout, Toni Morrison, Taiye Selasi, Justin Torres, Deesha Philyaw, Alexander Chee, Hilary Leichter, Emma Copley Eisenberg, Yiyun Li, Jhumpa Lahiri, Torrey Peters, Nami Mun, and Bryan Washington, among others. This craft course will include generative prompts inspired by the readings.