24PearlStreet Workshops and Events
ASYNCHRONOUS
In this workshop, we will discuss how prose narratives can benefit from poetic techniques, how expanding the use of poetic principles—from metaphor to repetition, space, juxtaposition, accrual, lists, and rhyme—can deepen the experience of writing and reading creative nonfiction. What is the lyric essay? How can we use a “volta” to surprise ourselves and our readers? This generative class will be a discussion of craft at the line level. We will do writing exercises and create several “after” drafts for you to share with the class and develop when our time together is done.
Biography
Deborah Jackson Taffa’s debut, Whiskey Tender, a 2024 National Book Award Finalist, has been named on best lists at Esquire, Oprah Daily, ELLE, and The Washington Post. She has received awards and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, MacDowell, the Ellen Meloy Foundation, Tin House, the University of Iowa, and the NY Summer Writers Institute. Taffa received her MFA in Iowa City. A citizen of the Kwatsaan Nation and Laguna Pueblo, she is the director of the MFA CW program at the IAIA in Santa Fe, NM.
