Writing creatively involves cultivating the thoughts in your head as well as putting words on the page. In this morning workshop at Alloy 26, creatives of all types will practice observation skills and brainstorming exercises to help open up new ideas that feed into fresh writing.

During these morning sessions, you will:
PRACTICE using observation, metaphor, and empathy to enhance your creativity and communication skills in a low-risk environment;
STRENGTHEN your ability to observe the world through an unfiltered lens;
GAIN confidence in your storytelling and ideas.

As Chekhov said, “It is time for writers to admit that nothing in this world makes sense. Only fools and charlatans think they know and understand everything. The stupider they are, the wider they conceive their horizons to be. And if an artist decides to declare that he understands nothing of what he [or she] sees-this in itself constitutes a considerable clarity in the realm of thought, and a great step forward.”

We will learn to be baffled, to observe without judgment, to use walking, talking, and list-making as a means of accessing new ideas, and then we will turn to the page and write.

No experience necessary. Both writers and non-writers welcome. Each attendee will receive a day pass to continue writing after the workshop in our coworking space, Alloy 26.

Please bring a laptop or notebook!

Sherrie Flick is the author of the novel Reconsidering Happiness, the flash fiction chapbook I Call This Flirting, and the short story collection Whiskey, Etc., winner of the Foreword INDIES bronze prize and named one of Entropy’s Best Fiction Books of 2016. Her fiction has appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Ploughshares, SmokeLong Quarterly, and W.W. Norton’s Flash Fiction Forward, New Sudden Fiction, and New Micro. Her nonfiction has been published in the Wall Street Journal, Creative Nonfiction, Ploughshares, Pittsburgh Quarterly, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She works as a freelance writer and teaches in the Food Studies and MFA programs at Chatham University. Autumn House Press will publish her second story collection and In Fact Books will publish a book of her narrative nonfiction in Fall 2018.