The Basement, The Stoning : Writing Metaphorically to Shed Light on the Dark
Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” are two of the most iconic short stories of the twentieth century. Combining mundane details with exaggerated circumstances, these narratives penetrate the dangers of complicity and mob mentality. In this workshop, we’ll study these two masterpieces and use satire and metaphor to write our own stories,
with an end goal to explore the darkest aspects of our lives and sound a warning bell for compassion and change.
Sharma Shields is the author of a short story collection, Favorite Monster, and two novels, The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac and The
Cassandra. Sharma’s writing has appeared in Electric Lit, Slice, The New York Times, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Fugue, and
has garnered such awards as the Washington State Book Award, the Autumn House Fiction Prize, the Tim McGinnis Award for Humor, a Grant for Artist Projects from Artist Trust, and the A.B. Guthrie Award for Outstanding Prose. She received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of Washington and her MFA from the University of Montana. Shields has worked in independent bookstores and
public libraries throughout Washington State and now lives in Spokane with her husband and two young children.
Learn more about Sharma Shields