“I love that Fishtrap is a generative workshop, and I loved my workshop leader, Sharma Shields.”
Vivid Monsters: Exploring Vulnerabilities, Fear, and Strangeness in Our Writing
Shirley Jackson once said, “I delight in what I fear.” Some of our most successful and visceral writing blooms from that which terrifies us and renders us most vulnerable. In this workshop, designed for writers of prose (both non-fiction and fiction), we’ll learn how to approach the monstrous and write about it with power, distinctness, and care. We’ll study short pieces of writing from Lucia Perillo, Elissa Washuta, Jia Tolentino, and more, and we’ll consider frames, humor, and surprise for our work to give it layered interest and necessary respite. We’ll write ferociously and frequently, and by week’s end our monsters will growl and glitter and leap off of the page.
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 short stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Electric Lit, Catapult, Slice, Slate, Fairy Tale Review, Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Fugue, and have garnered such awards as the 2016 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. She is the founder and managing editor of the boutique press Scablands Books and a contributing editor for Moss. Sharma has worked in independent bookstores and public libraries throughout Washington State and lives in Spokane with her husband, writer and graphic novelist Simeon Mills, and their two children.