Bending Genres Weekend Workshop: “Opening the Back Door: Absurdism as a Way to Truth” August 23-25

*This is a brand new workshop designed for the Bending Genres Weekend Workshop series (and it will also be the last online workshop I will be running until the end of the year). Join us for a wild weekend of writing and absurdity!

Opening the Back Door: Absurdism as a Way to Truth

August 23-25, 2019

While realism in fiction has its place, some truths can be clumsy when faced head-on. When you cannot take the front door into your material because it’s too raw, painful, blunt or overdone—then you must find the back door. Absurdism (and the surreal) is that back door, a less obvious way into the material where The Big Truth can be revealed. Deceptively silly, absurdism can create faster pathways to emotional resonance by keeping the audience off guard, unprepared, and more receptive. Sometimes the old ways just don’t work. Sometimes we must speak in new tongues. In this workshop, we will examine how, by going into the absurd, we can and often do arrive at an unexpectedly more poignant truth(s).