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The most memorable fiction offers characters whose life journeys connect readers to their own life journeys, as in the transformative work of authors like Alice Walker and Helena María Viramontes. In this online workshop with Zelda Lockhart, PhD, we will develop our fiction utilizing the “personal plot” method outlined in Zelda’s book The Soul of the Full-Length Manuscript: Turning Life’s Wounds into the Gift of Literary, Fiction, Memoir or Poetry. Because you are the character you have spent your life developing, this workshop is easily suited for writers of all levels. We will create characters using our own life experiences from wounding impactful events to joyful revelation and outcome. Characters should be complex folks with wounds, wants, gifts and reasons for their behaviors, just like us. We will rely on self-help books for our characters and research the social events surrounding their lives as we give our characters a soul based on our own plots. What we do not know, we will imagine and speculate based on the probable truth and the desired outcome. This workshop serves as a starter course to transform all of the chapters of your future writing. It is a transformative journey that will not only offer long-term skills in daily writing and peer editing, but long-term skills in managing and manifesting your creative life.

ZELDA LOCKHART holds a PhD in Expressive Art Therapies, and an MA in Literature. Her novels, teaching and keynotes focus on the power of story and nature to connect us and heal our generations. She has over 30 years experience facilitating creative writing workshops for adults in communities, in classrooms and abroad. Lockhart is winner of the Lambda Literary Foundation 2024 Outstanding Mid-career Novelist Prize. Her novels include HarperCollins 2023 release Trinity translated and released by HarperCollins France 2024 as Entends ma voix, Fifth Born a Barnes & Noble Discovery selection and a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Award finalist, Cold Running Creek a Black Caucus of the American Library Association Honor Fiction award winner, and Fifth Born II: The Hundredth Turtle a 2011 Lambda Literary Award finalist. Her writing-healing methods are contained in her bookThe Soul of the Full-Length Manuscript: Turning Life’s Wounds into the Gift of Literary Fiction, Memoir, or Poetry. For more information visit www.zeldalockhart.com.