Class Description
How do you make a child voice work for an adult audience? In this class, we will discuss why you would choose to use a kid’s voice to tell your story and how to make the voice work for you. We’ll talk about the importance of the telling point of your story and how to avoid the imitative fallacy. We will also discuss what distinguishes young adult fiction and adult fiction, beyond the age of your narrator. We’ll look at examples from Roddy Doyle, NoViolet Bulawayo, and Aryn Kyle, and we'll do an in-class writing exercise. By the end of class, you'll have a better understanding of why child narrators are useful in literary fiction and how to use a child's voice to your advantage in your work. Please bring a notebook or a laptop to class.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.