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Friday, October 5, 2012

Write Now: Thomas Kennedy, A Girl And A Fish

A writer must draw the reader in, encouraging the reader to momentarily suspend reality and step into the story. A great way to do this is through the five senses: sight, taste, smell, touch, and sound. It is the small details that bring a reader in . . . coffee and bacon on his breath — two aromatic smells.

The Hub City Writers Project offers several writing workshops throughout the year and Thomas Kennedy was the first this fall. He taught about the five senses of fiction. He gave us some wonderful examples, some of his own as well as other authors. 

He gave us the opportunity to write. He gave us a prompt. Pens scrawled across paper, not a single laptop was there among the students, most of us well over 30. We shared our work, some was not bad, but some was pretty extraordinary for a ten minute writing session. He did not critique our work. He praised and encouraged each student pointing to a particular detail or passage he liked.

He shared with us the first writing prompt he was ever given, two words: girl, fish. He gave us five minutes to write. 

For me it invoked images of my granddaddy. He always took my brothers fishing, but he rarely allowed my sister and me to come along — mostly because then he would have to find a bathroom for us, and my sister always had to go. But this made me remember the feel of a fishing rod between my fingers, the line twinges, and the cork bobs beneath the surface. "Snap it, snap it," he said, but I was too late. The hook emerged from the water, worm less, glistening silver in the sun.

This just might turn into a short story or it may make an appearance in my novel. I'm not sure, but I know someday I will use it.

I have heard about Thomas Kennedy for the last several years. He is the mentor of my mentor, Susan Tekulve, who is a professor at Converse College and her novel, In the Garden of Stone won the South Carolina First Novel Prize this year and will be published in May of 2013.

The Hub City Writers Project offers workshops, conferences, and many other opportunities for writers.

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