Tiffany Quay Tyson
The nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host a virtual writers workshop with Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction winner Tiffany Quay Tyson on Wednesday, September 29, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The workshop, Writing the Active Setting: Place as Character in Fiction, is limited to 20 participants, $45/person, with registration now open through https://patconroyliterarycenter.eventbrite.com.
Many writers create settings that are as integral to their work as the story on the page. When rendered well, these places function as active characters. Think of William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, Flannery O’Connor’s rural southern landscapes, Shirley Jackson’s cursed villages, Pat Conroy’s Carolina Lowcountry, or F. Scott Fitzgerald’s West Egg. Whether realistic or fantastic, a great setting serves as more than a backdrop to the story. In this workshop, participants will look at examples and explore strategies to incorporate descriptions and details that will bring a fictional world vibrantly to life.
Instructor Tiffany Quay Tyson is an award-winning novelist, humor writer, and teacher. Her novel The Past Is Never was the recipient of the Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction, and the Mississippi Author Award. Her debut novel, Three Rivers, was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Award for Fiction. Humor pieces have appeared in The Rumpus “Funny Women” column, The Belladonna Comedy, The Establishment, Slackjaw, and more. She currently lives and works in Denver, Colorado, where she serves on the faculty at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She is a native of Jackson, Mississippi. Learn more at www.tiffanyquaytyson.com.
