A generative food writing workshop for fiction and nonfiction writers.
Great food writing utilizes sensory details to convey touch/smell/sensation/ambience, as well as personal emotion while avoiding cliche. Fiction and food writer Sophie Nau will lead our workshop and teach us how to use food to the fullest in our stories.
Fiction and nonfiction writers can use this workshop for whatever project they might be working on: maybe to expand a scene, to think about details like taste and touch, or to dive into place or culture.
This is a generative workshop, so you will leave with pieces of writing to expand on or use in your projects.
We will start with reading excerpts from writers who use vivid food imagery in their work such as MFK Fischer, Jonathan Gold, and Anya von Bremzen.
Then, we will dive into the craft.
Finally, Sophie will guide us through prompts that draw from your personal food memory that you can construct into scenes or vignettes, paying particular attention to the details, emotions, and experiences surrounding food.
Blue Cypress Books is generously hosting us and will provide refreshments on a pay-what-you-can model. This event is FREE and open to all writers.
Sophie Nau is a fiction and food writer from Los Angeles. She is a contributing writer for Country Roads and Edible Los Angeles, and her essay “I Carry My Weight in Groceries” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2021. Her time spent baking pastries and pouring wine in restaurants in L.A., New York, and New Orleans continues to influence her writing and fascination with food culture and women at work. She’s a graduate from NYU and the University of New Orleans.