Does Your Writing Smell? The Power of " The Fifth Sense"
9:00 am to Noon
No other sense is as powerfully linked to memories and emotions as our sense of smell. Yet we writers tend to overlook the power of “The Fifth Sense” in our writing. Whether you are a fiction, nonfiction, or poetry writer, your work can benefit from increased attention to scent imagery.
In this WordShop, we will learn a bit about how smell operates in the brain and mind. We will read and analyze examples of scent imagery used by successful writers; sniff scent samples and generate in-class writing inspired by them; and discuss ways in which we can incorporate “The Fifth Sense” into our current or future writing projects.
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Julie Kane is a past Louisiana Poet Laureate and the recipient of the 2025 Louisiana Writer Award. Her six books and two chapbooks of poems include Rhythm & Booze, winner of the National Poetry Series; Jazz Funeral, winner of the Donald Justice Poetry Prize; and Mothers of Ireland, winner of the Poetry by the Sea Book Prize and a longlist finalist for the Julie Suk Prize. Just out in 2025 from LSU Press is Naked Ladies: New and Selected Poems. As a nonfiction writer, Julie co-authored the History Book Club featured alternate selection Counterpart: A South Vietnamese Naval Officer’s War, and she has placed essays in numerous journals and essay collections. She has been the George Bennett Fellow in Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy, the New Orleans Writer in Residence at Tulane University, and a Fulbright Scholar to Vilnius Pedagogical University (Lithuania). She taught for many years in the Western Colorado University MFA Program and is Professor Emerita at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. |