Live Seminar Via Zoom Saturday, November 8th, 2025

Class will meet 12PM - 5:00PM Eastern

Taught by Karen E. Bender, author of three collections; Refund, which was a Finalist for the National Book Award, shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Story Prize, and Longlisted for the Story prize; The New Order, which was Longlisted for the Story prize; and The Words of Dr. L,  published in May, 2025. Her novels are Like Normal People and A Town of Empty Rooms. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, The Yale Review, The Harvard Review, Story, Guernica, and others, have been reprinted in Best American Short Stories and Best American Mystery stories and won three Pushcart prizes.

Get to know Karen in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

Dialogue is what people say—but how do you use this technique as a writer? In this class, we’ll do a detailed look into how dialogue reveals character, and how to give your dialogue more urgency.

We’ll look at dialogue and emotion, how to combine dialogue and gesture, rants, situation and dialogue. We’ll examine stories by John Cheever, Ernest Hemingway, JD Salinger, Edward P. Jones, Rebecca Lee, Roz Chast, ZZ Packer. Then we’ll do some exercises, practicing dialogue in a variety of contexts. 

Note: The week of the seminar, Karen will email several PDFs of the stories we'll be discussing--you don't need to read these before the class, but can if you would like.

Can't Make It Live?

No problem! The session will be recorded and available to watch after the seminar concludes.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Through close reading of stories, learn different strategies for using dialogue in stories                
• Learn ways to make dialogue more emotional and urgent                
• Practice these strategies though a variety of writing prompts

COURSE EXPECTATIONS: 

We'll be going over the different examples of dialogue in class, and then writing generative exercises to practice these methods. Students should come to class ready to write and will have opportunities to share work if they would like. They will leave the class with a variety of new techniques to make their dialogue ring true on the page.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

Live Seminar Via Zoom. Can't Make It Live? No problem! The session will be recorded and available to watch after the seminar concludes.

• Instructor: Karen E. Bender
  
• Live Seminar Via Zoom on Saturday, November 8th, 2025
• 12PM - 5PM EST

• Can't Make It Live? No problem! The session will be recorded and available to watch after the seminar concludes.

Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this seminar.