Quantum Mechanics of Tension with Zeyn Joukhadar (via Zoom)

If a story is perpetual movement, and structure is a means of organizing that movement, then tension is the fuel that gets us where we want to go. In the novel, we usually refer to everything that stores a narrative charge in terms of ‘tension’ or ‘stakes,’ but in reality the battery that supplies a work with its forward momentum is often much more complex. In this two-hour master class, we will begin by discussing the basics of how to create and maintain tension in fiction. From there we’ll move further afield with some close readings, exploring the implications of queer quantum entanglements for the invisible architectures of theme, the narrative leaps and layerings of the lyric, and the ways that structure itself can propel a work by holding disparate ideas in close, charged proximity. Throughout, we’ll do some short exercises to explore what these concepts have to offer for our own writing processes.

NB: This class will be taught on Zoom (Sunday, December 8, 12:30-2:30 PM ET) and will be capped at 15 students. Registrants will receive the Zoom link to the email address they use to register. It will arrive immediately after registration so please check your spam folder if you do not receive it. It will also be sent the day before class as a reminder. Please review the course policies page before registering for any classes. Please email misty@writerscenter.org with any questions.

All HVWC scholarship applications will be available on May 1 and will be due on May 15 for all summer/fall 2024 classes. 

Zeyn Joukhadar is the author of the Lambda Literary and Stonewall Book Award-winning novel The Thirty Names of Night as well as The Map of Salt and Stars, which won the Middle East Book Award. His work has appeared in Electric Literature, Salon, The Paris Review, [PANK], the anthologies Letters to a Writer of Color, Kink, This Arab Is Queer, and elsewhere, and has been twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Joukhadar serves on the board of the Radius of Arab American Writers (RAWI) and mentors emerging writers of color with the Periplus Collective.