In a world just slant from our own, the people are waiting for the Rapture. But what they get is not at all what they thought it would be. Whether they’re pilgrimaging to the Very First Kentucky Fried Chicken, living in life-sized Barbie houses, taking the Marriott staff hostage, trading Candy Corn on Wall Street or draining Loch Ness to “find out the goddamn truth once and for all,” there is a familiar sort of desperation in this post-Rapture existence. In moments you will laugh at the absurdity of their world, and in other moments the darkness will feel all too familiar…
Nancy Stohlman is the author of six books including Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction, winner of the 2021 Reader Views Gold Award. Her fiction includes After the Rapture, Madam Velvet’s Cabaret of Oddities, The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories, The Monster Opera, and Searching for Suzi: a flash novel. Her work has been anthologized widely, appearing in the Norton anthology New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction and The Best Small Fictions 2019, as well as adapted for both stage and screen. She teaches at the University of Colorado Boulder and around the world.
Sometimes we laugh so we don’t cry. Author Nancy Stohlman shares how to go from hysteria to hysterical when writing humor and satire.
I wrote “The Bad Thing,” the opening piece in After the Rapture, in 2015, in a world spinning from the Sandy Hook shooting, the latest in a disturbing and increasingly horrible trend. Both my children were school age at the time, my youngest in elementary school, and active shooter safety drills and lockdowns had become commonplace for American children.
Like many others, I was frustrated with what felt like limited options to respond–yelling into the echo chamber that is social media or sending thoughts and prayers. Neither were doing a whole lot.
Back In Person! ACC’s Annual Spring Literary Festival.
The Writers Studio at ACC provides a full-day writing conference for students and community members that is the most affordable, quality-laden literary festival you’ll find, for writers of all levels and ages.
Included with the registration fee:
One complimentary copy of the “Progenitor Art and Literary Journal”, v. 57, 2022
Continental Breakfast, including coffee and tea
Lunch
Author reading and book signing during lunch
Open Mic opportunity for registrants at the end of the day (approximately 5 minutes per person)
Registration fees: $25 student rate* $30 CCCS employee rate $40 Senior rate $55 community member rate *Students of any college or high school. Please show Student ID at check-in.
SCHEDULE 8:30-9:15 Sign-in and continental breakfast 9:30-10:45 Session 1 (registrants choose from 2) 11:00-12:15 Session 2 (registrants choose from 2) 12:30-1:30 Lunch and author reading (I WILL READ FROM AFTER THE RAPTURE) 2:00-3:15 Session 3 (registrants choose from 2** I WILL BE PRESENTING IN SESSION 3 3:30-4:15 Festival concludes with an Open Mic reading for registrants—time limit of five minutes per reader 4:30 campus closes
SESSION 3: 2:00-3:15 pm
Write a Flash Novel: All Meat and No Fat Workshop Description: Do you have a Big Story Idea brewing but you don’t know where to begin? Have you been working on a traditional novel/creative nonfiction book, but you find yourself hitting a wall? Maybe you need a total perspective shift, a radical re-visioning of how to write a book? Meet the “Flash Novel”, a breakout genre that draws on the skills of flash fiction to tell a large-scale story in a compact space. Existing at the intersection of the novel and flash fiction, the flash novel has both the scope and complexity of a novel and the ingenuity of flash fiction, delivering a sophisticated reading experience to a contemporary audience. In this workshop, we will envision, draft, collage, and create momentum on your Big Idea. We’ll begin breaking it apart and making friends with the scope of it. For 90 minutes, we’ll get out of our own way, and you will discover the bones of your project as well as the enthusiasm and insight to know where to go next. Open to all writers, whether you have already started writing or the idea still lives in your head and heart. Come ready to play and rethink what you know about writing a book.