June 25, 2023
Sunday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
At Locus Magazine HQ Preservation Park, downtown Oakland (near the 12th St BART) $195.00
Join the legendary award-winning author Connie Willis for a one-day intensive writing master class in downtown Oakland this June!
TICKETING FOR THE WORKSHOP IS CLOSED.
“AND THEN STOP” – ON THE BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS OF STORIES
The King’s advice to Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was very simple: “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” Oh, if only it were that simple. Writers have more trouble beginning and ending their stories than with anything else. Connie Willis will discuss how, where, and when to start your story, and especially how to end it, making sure that you resolve the story, keep the promises you made, and tie up all those troublesome loose ends. She’ll also discuss direct, ambiguous, and trick endings, as well as first lines, narrative hooks, and stories that aren’t told chronologically.
CONNIE WILLIS
Connie Willis is the critically acclaimed author of Doomsday Book, Passage, To Say Nothing of the Dog and Bellwether. Willis has been awarded eleven Hugo Awards, eleven Locus Awards and six Nebula Awards. Her stories have an epic feel and range from laugh out loud funny to deadly serious. Her keen observations illuminate the humor, love, and redemption found in both the comic and the tragic.
Celebrated as a humorist with spot-on comic timing, she also uses her fiction to examine larger questions: the nature of God, the persistence of suffering and loss, and the role of love and redemption. Willis most recently won a Hugo Award for her books Blackout and All Clear (August 2011). Crosstalk came out in 2016 and her much-anticipated novel The Road to Roswell is forthcoming June 27, 2023, two days after the workshop! She was inducted to the Science Fiction Museum and Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009 and received the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award in 2012.
LOCUS WRITERS WORKSHOPS
Locus Magazine is excited to bring master classes with award-winning authors to the Bay Area. These classes began with writing workshops held in Seattle in conjunction with the Locus Awards Weekend, and have run for over a decade. Past instructors include Charlie Jane Anders, Christopher Barzak, Gail Carriger, Andy Duncan, Amal El-Mohtar, Daryl Gregory, Stephen Graham Jones, Nancy Kress, Yoon Ha Lee, Annalee Newitz, Paul Park, Kim Stanley Robinson, Carrie Vaughn, and, yes, Connie Willis.
Thinking of attending? Please do. We support diversity! We encourage people of color, women, people with disabilities, older people, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people to apply. We welcome people of any gender identity or expression, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, age, size, nationality, religion, culture, education level, and self-identification. We may have seats available for financial hardship or marginalized communities; please email to inquire.
For more information about the Locus Awards events, ticketed separately, visit the Locus Awards Weekend site. Exact workshop location and other details will be emailed after registration. Location is in Oakland, CA at the historic Preservation Park.
Additional questions? Please e-mail Locus.
