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The Great Character Surrender

Home Events WordShops The Great Character Surrender

1:00 pm to 4:00 pm 

Join Kionna Walker LeMalle, winner of the Lee Smith Novel Prize, for an interactive WordShop on techniques for crafting authentic characters and practicing the art of revision. Using early drafts from her debut novel, Behind the Waterline, LeMalle will share concrete examples of how surrendering to the novel’s characters ultimately shaped the work. Writers will learn the importance of experimenting with voice and point-of-view during the drafting process. Designed for writers at all levels, this session will challenge participants to interrogate their work for evidence of author intrusion and problems with narration.

Kionna Walker LeMalle is a novelist, poet, speaker, and sought-after writing teacher. Through her past work with Houston's Writers in the Schools, she offered classroom and community-based writing workshops and developed both on-demand and in-person training for writing teachers. Today, LeMalle is an executive writer for the University of Houston-Downtown and an adjunct professor in the Department of Narrative Arts at Houston Christian University, where she earned her MFA degree. LeMalle is also the founder of Writer.Teacher.Friend, a virtual writing group.