Event – Detail

Working from the creative writing advice that "nothing happens nowhere," acclaimed author Emma Eisenberg leads participants through a workshop formulated on the notion that place is a fundamental component of fiction, integral to both plot and characters. In this three-hour generative class, writers will delve into a place of personal emotional resonance, then use this setting as the origin point for a new work of fiction. Among other models, Eisenberg will draw on the process of author Liz Moore, whose novels often begin with a particular setting before Moore goes on to ask, Who populates this place? And what are their problems and stories?

Emma Copley Eisenberg is the nationally bestselling author of the novel Housemates, nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Fiction and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Prize, as well as the nonfiction book The Third Rainbow Girl, a New York Times Notable Book and Editor’s Choice. Her fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared widely including in The Yale Review, Granta, The Paris Review, The New Republic, The Cut, TIME, The New York Times Review of Books, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She lives in Philadelphia, where she co-founded Blue Stoop, a community hub for the literary arts, and is a 2026 Pew Foundation fellow. She’s received fellowships and residencies from Yaddo, Bread Loaf, Tin House and others, and has taught creative writing at Wesleyan University, Haverford College, Bryn Mawr College, Temple University and independently. Her next book of fiction, Fat Swim, which includes the Pushcart Prize-winning title story, was published by Random House in April, 2026.

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