Event—Adult Education

Second Helping: How Food Improves Your Fiction Writing

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Class Description

Food wields tremendous power, in life and in fiction. We’ll explore this idea, using food to create mood, advance plot, develop characters, and enrich stories. We’ll read examples from Aimee Bender, Lydia Davis, Antonio Tabucchi, and Banana Yoshimoto, among others. Exercises will tackle particular craft elements (mood, plot, character, and theme), and students will leave class with either a short-short story or a sketch for a longer work.

Anca L. Szilágyi is the author of Daughters of the Air, which Shelf Awareness called “a striking debut,” and Dreams Under Glass, which Buzzfeed Books called “a novel for our modern times.” She has taught creative writing since 2010.

Materials List

Required

  • Instructor-Distributed Materials
  • If possible, participants should also have at hand a cookbook (ideally an old one) to use for a writing prompt. Digital vintage books and menus will also be available in class.

First Reading

Cost and Registration

1 Session, $100 ($90 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member

We now offer our classes at three different price options: Regular, Community Supported, and Sponsor. Following the models of other institutions, we want to ensure that our classes are accessible to a wider audience while continuing to support our instructors. You may choose the price that best fits your situation when registering through Learning Stream.

To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.

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Questions?

Call us at (312) 255-3700 or send us an email at adulteducation@newberry.org.

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