The Fantastic Ekphrastic Writing Workshop

Instructor: Alli Marshall
March 22-April 19, Tuesday evenings 6:00-8:30

Ekphrastic art is work made in response to another piece of artwork. It can be a poem jump-started by a painting, a song inspired by a sculpture or — to paraphrase a cliche — a dance about architecture. In this class, we’ll focus on fiction as our medium of expression.

We’ll begin with a discussion of ekphrastic art and examples of it from our own bodies of work (it’s likely we’ve all made ekphrastic art, even if unintentionally). We’ll also talk about ekphrastic art as a means of collaboration with a knowing or unknowing fellow artist. And we’ll work on outlining and/or writing flash fiction pieces in response to several artistic works of various mediums.

From there, we’ll move on to creating short fiction pieces that build off our ekphrastic explorations. Through in-class writing prompts, group writing exercises, and critiques, we’ll develop our ekphrastic works into completed stories.

We’ll also compile a collection of resources for future ekphrastic practice, such as Pinterest, playlists, and museum exhibitions that are available online for free, virtual tours.

GOALS: To find inspiration in unexpected places, and to trigger ideas for plot and character development. Open to writers of all experience levels.

Register at Great Smokies Writing Program.