Writers Institute Fellow and award-winning author James Lasdun to conduct fiction writing workshop

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James Lasdun, fiction and nonfiction writer, poet, and screenwriter

ALBANY, NY (02/04/2016)(readMedia)-- Please Note: Dated Material. Do not run after February 22, 2016

New York State Writers Institute Fellow and award-winning author James Lasdun will conduct a writing workshop in spring 2016 for writers interested in all aspects of fiction. The workshop will take place on the University at Albany's uptown campus and is offered for non-credit, free of charge for non-University students. Admission to the workshop is based on the submission of writing samples.

The Fiction Workshop (starting March 24) will focus on detailed discussion of student's work but there will also be readings from published novels, novellas, and short stories. These will range from the classic to the contemporary, and will be selected with a view to broadening the discussion of topics such as character, plot, style, and form, as they arise. Participants will be expected to be strongly self-motivated and to submit two works of up to twenty pages each over the course of the semester. These may be short stories or excerpts from longer works.

Complete information on the workshop and submission guidelines may be obtained by calling the Institute at 518-442-5620 or by visiting the Institute's website at:

http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/programpages/workshop.html

James Lasdun is a fiction writer, poet, and screenwriter. Born and raised in England, Lasdun has received awards and critical praise for his work on both sides of the Atlantic. Critic James Wood has said, "James Lasdun seems to me to be one of the secret gardens of English writing . . . When we read him we know what language is for."

Lasdun's novels include The Horned Man (2002), which was a New York Times Notable Book and an Economist Best Book of the Year, and the political thriller Seven Lies (2005), which was long-listed for the Man-Booker Prize.

His newest publication is Bluestone: New and Selected Poems (2015). J. D. McClatchy described the poems as "...heady with astonishing details and exhilarating language, yet in the core of each is a steel rod of precision and moral depth. ... Here is the rare book-essential on every shelf, in every soul."

Lasdun's book Give Me Everything You Have (2013), is a nonfiction account of his experience of being harassed and stalked (electronically) by a former writing student. Publishers Weekly named it a December 2012 "Pick of the Week," and said, "This subtle, compassionate take on the subject is rife with insights into the current cyberculture's cult of anonymity, as well as the power, failure, and magic of writing."

His most recent story collection, It's Beginning to Hurt, published in 2009, was listed by The Atlantic Monthly as number four of its top five books of 2009.

For additional information contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writer-inst.

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