The Writer's Studio: Multilayered Dialogue

The Writer’s Studio is a free workshop series open to all students from all majors. Come study the art of writing in intensive, fun, hands-on workshops with dynamic faculty from the Creative Writing program, the Stanford Storytelling Project, and others. You will leave with an expanded understanding of what your writing can do.

Great dialogue is essential to drama, fiction, and even creative nonfiction because it does so much for a story: characterization, exposition, and action. Dynamic dialogue—dialogue that does a lot of these things at the same time—is the holy grail for dramatists and screenwriters, and at least sacred for many novelists and journalists. In this workshop, we'll look at how to create this kind of dimensional, double- or triple- duty dialogue, looking particularly how it's done by authors visiting campus this spring: Sherman Alexie, Langston Hughes, Amy Tan, and Tobias Wolff.

Jonah Willihnganz is the Director of the Stanford Storytelling Project and Co-Founder of the LifeWorks program for integrative learning. He has published fiction, essays, and scholarship on American literature and mass media. He has taught writing and literature at Stanford since 2002.