Summer 2023 Workshop:
Form & Craft with Adrienne Raphel and Andrew Altschul
Join 2022-23 American Library in Paris Visiting Fellow and author Adrienne Raphel for a two-part writing workshop dedicated to form and craft.
A piece of finished writing can seem like it’s always already been in its perfect form, polished from the moment it sprung out of its author’s head. But behind the scenes, as every writer knows, the final product is only the tip of an extremely complicated iceberg.
In this two-part workshop, we’ll be exploring form and craft, focusing on demystifying the process from first draft through revision and publication. Once you have a draft of something, how do you revise it? How do you keep revising? And how do you know when it’s done?
The workshop will unfold over two main sessions. In the first session, we’ll have a reading and conversation with author and professor Andrew Altschul. In the second session, we’ll continue generating new ideas, and we’ll also focus on how to keep re-thinking prior writing. Each draft will become a touchstone for a new conversation.
This series will take place in person at the Library on 8 June and 22 June from 19h00 to 20h30 CEST and is open to both Library Members and non-members.
About Adrienne Raphel
Adrienne Raphel is the author of Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can’t Live Without Them, named an Editor’s Choice by the New York Times Book Review; What Was It For, winner of the Rescue Press Black Box Poetry Prize; and Our Dark Academia (2022). Her writing appears in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Poetry, and many other publications. She has been a featured speaker at events such as the National Book Festival at the Library of Congress, and she serves as a mentor with the Periplus collective. Raphel holds a PhD from Harvard, an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a BA from Princeton. She is currently a Lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program and teaches with the Berlin Writers’ Workshop.
About Andrew Altschul
Andrew Altschul is the author of three novels, including most recently The Gringa. His stories and essays have appeared in Esquire, McSweeney’s, The Wall Street Journal, Ploughshares, and anthologies including Best New American Voices and O. Henry Prize Stories. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford, he now teaches at Colorado State University.
The Meetings
In this conversation and generative session, we’ll be joined by author and professor Andrew Altschul to discuss the writing process from soup to nuts. Altschul and Raphel will lead a reading, a conversation, and a Q&A. Then, they’ll lead a writing exercise, with time to draft in the session and discuss as a group.
In this workshop, we’ll continue to generate new writing, and we’ll also share and comment on previous compositions. Participants are warmly welcome to bring drafts composed anytime prior to the class, including during Session One. But bringing in work is not a requirement, as we’ll also be generating new work in the beginning of the session. In the revision process, we’ll focus on encouragement and guidance, rather than on critique. As a community, we’ll practice revision through inspiration. Each draft becomes the starting point for a new mode of discussion.
Register for the Workshop
Advance payment and registration is required:
Members rate: 40€ per participant.
Non-members rate: 60€ per participant.
Please note that registration is non-refundable.
Please email Emilie Biggs, Programs Assistant, biggs@americanlibraryinparis.org with any questions.
