Crafting Short Pieces: Fiction and Nonfiction

• Tuesdays, January 27 - February 24 (5 sessions)
• 7-9 pm
• The Ink Spot

According to legend, Ernest Hemingway was lunching at the Algonquin, sitting at the famous “round table” with several writers, claiming he could write a six-word-long short story. The other writers balked. Hemingway told them to ante up ten dollars each. If he was wrong, he would match it; if he was right, he would keep the pot. He quickly wrote six words on a napkin and passed it around.

The words were:“For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn.”

Papa won the bet: His short story was complete. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end!

As the title suggests, the focus of this class is the crafting of short pieces—nonfiction and fiction (however, rest assured that the pieces will be longer than six words!). The class will cover how to come up with ideas, how to start and how to finish, how to flesh out characters, scenes, plot, and resonance in a relatively small amount of space. Essentially, this class is about how to write a self-contained and memorable short piece and, if you have longer pieces—novel chapters, or essays—how to tailor these as a shorter piece for potential publication. We will be reading examples of successful short fiction and nonfiction pieces, breaking down craft, technique, and strategies, and writing, sharing, and critiquing new works in class each night.


Rob Williams is the co-editor of the best-selling, Lambda Award-Nominated anthology, From Boys To Men: Gay Men Write About Growing Up. His essays and short stories have been published in San Diego CityBeat, Maisonneuve Magazine, 400 Words, Versal, Pindeldyboz, and the anthologies Fool For Love, I Do/I Don’t, I Remember When Dad: Stories and Memories About Fathers, among many others. He teaches Creative Writing and English Composition at Grossmont College and is working on a novel set in Southern Utah in the 1950s.