Instructor Thao Thai is the author of Banyan Moon, the July 2023 Read with Jenna title, Barnes & Noble Discover Pick, and Book of the Month selection. A recipient of the 2024 Ohio Arts Council’s Individual Excellence Award, her work has been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Southern Living, Elle, Lit Hub, and other publications. She holds an MFA from The Ohio State University and an MA from the University of Chicago. She also publishes romance novels under the pen name, Nora Nguyen, where her debut novel was named one of NPR's 2024 Best Books of the Year and Amazon's Editor's Picks.

Learn more about Thao Thai in our Meet the Teaching Artist series. 

This class is limited to 8 writers.

In this course, we'll excavate the emotional terrain of a love scene through its physical choreography, character interiority, and the varied conflicts at play. Through close readings and generative, in-class work, students will walk away with a greater understanding of how to create moving sex scenes that also build character and narrative.

We've all encountered a range of sex scenes that elicit a spectrum of responses: cringing, titillation, confusion, heartbreak, repulsion, elation—the list goes on.

A well-wrought sex scene is never a result of happenstance. It's built through a series of careful craft choices that balance character, setting, action, dialogue, interiority, and many other moments that are often invisible to the reader.

Additionally, context is hugely important to a scene between two or more characters. How does race play into a sex scene? Gender? Class? Age? Within each sex scene, there is an arc that tells us something new about the dynamics between the people participating.

In this course, we will work together to unpack those craft choices by examining some passages of iconic (and, maybe, iconoclastic) sex scenes. After spending time with these close readings, we'll apply them through some generative writing exercises designed for our own projects.

We'll spend time workshopping our work in a safe setting with our peers and walk away with an understanding of where to go in our projects.

Here, there are no clear genre distinctions. An effective sex scene can exist in romantasy, in literary fiction, in horror, in a crime novel. I write in multiple genres (romance, literary fiction, and mystery) and have employed sex scenes in each of my novels to move plot and character forward. Similarly, sex scenes are crucial elements in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

Together, we will explore the purpose of a sex scene and how we can all capitalize on longing and power—the two strongholds of sex—in order to create more tension in our work.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1 Focus: Close Readings

Week 2 Focus: Generative Work

Week 3 Focus: Workshopping

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Students will learn what moves them in a love scene.
• Students will have an understanding of which tools are most effective for them as readers.
• Students will have one draft of a scene that they can work on.
• Students will have feedback, if desired, on their workshopped scene.
• Students will have the chance to participate in open and safe dialogue about what makes a sex scene effective for a reader.

PRAISE FOR THAO THAI:

“Thao Thai captures the complexities of familial love with an unflinching yet gorgeously lyric eye. Banyan Moon is an ambitious and masterful debut!" —Stacey Swann, author of Olympus, Texas

“Heart-shatteringly beautiful. Banyan Moon is a love letter to keepers of secrets, to motherhood, family, and survival. Thao Thai is a major talent whose exciting, impressive, and poetic prose will grow into you, like a strong and lush banyan tree deeply rooted in the rich Vietnamese literary heritage.”—Nguyễn Quế Mai, internationally bestselling author of The Mountains Sing and Dust Child

“Banyan Moon is an intricately woven story of three generations of women, surviving and living each in their own way. This novel has everything you want: desire, betrayal, grit, tenderness, pride, love, and—most deliciously, most brazenly—the dirty secrets and sacred secrets we make and keep to protect what we hold dear.”—Meng Jin, author of Little Gods and Self-Portrait with Ghost

“A beautifully written, page-turning novel that explores the traumatic legacy of war and the intimacy of family conflict with fierce grace and psychological acuity. Banyan Moon is a celebration of life in all its forms and a joy to read.”—Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Exiles

“Tender, gripping, and heartbreaking. A haunting page-turner that reexamines lineage, motherhood, and what it means to be a survivor—in every definition of the word.  A welcome debut from a stunning voice who will forever impact the Vietnamese American canon.” —Carolyn Huynh, author of The Fortunes of Jaded Women

"Banyan Moon offers an honest and aching exploration of the gulf between generations—how we misunderstand those we love the most, the unintentional hurt we cause them, how we struggle to find the language to connect. But it’s also a novel of hope, a story of forgiveness, a reminder that even though we can never fully know the people closest to us, it is worth the try."—Tracey Lien, international bestselling author of All That’s Left Unsaid

"Thao Thai pierces the veil between the living and the dead in this haunted and beautifully rendered debut. This is a story about mothers and daughters, the chasm where misunderstandings accrue, and enduring tenderness despite the little hurts we may inflict on our loved ones. Most affectingly, Thai gives us characters who mourn lost origins, but who still get to decide what home looks like. A spellbinding and intricately layered story, Banyan Moon celebrates Vietnamese women."—E.M. Tran, author of Daughters of the New Year 

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: