Many writers draw from real life, using insights about people they know for our fiction. Or the inspiration for a fictional story may be prompted by a person who has profoundly affected us. Therapists especially can be stirred by a clients’ experiences, but they cannot ethically write about them directly. In fiction, hewing too closely to those we know can also be stultifying and deadening for the work. How do we hold onto our insights from observed life yet create fully realized characters that surprise and delight us? How do we conjure up characters that take us into more dramatic territory and energize our story? This workshop is an opportunity to draw from observed life, utilize our nuggets of insight, observation and wisdom, while making the leap into imagined characters that are fully alive on the page. Exercises for fleshing out character detail, background and texture, writing prompts, and drafting will be at the center of this workshop.

Marina Budhos is the author of several award-winning books for adults and young adults. Her newest novel, We Are All We Have, was a Best Kirkus Book of 2022. Among her prior books are Watched, which received a Walter Award and an Asian Pacific American Honor, The Long Ride, Tell Us We’re Home, and Ask Me No Questions, recipient of numerous honors. She has also published the adult novels The Professor of Light and House of Waiting, and three works of nonfiction, including her co-authored books with husband Marc Aronson, Sugar Changed the World, an LA Times Book Finalist and Eyes of the World: Robert Capa, Gerda Taro & The Invention of Modern Photojournalism, both of which were YALSA Nonfiction Finalists. Her books have been published in several countries and her short work has appeared in publications such as The Daily Beast, LitHub, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Nation, Travel & Leisure, the Los Angeles Times, and in anthologies. She has received an NEA Literature Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Award for Women Writers, three Fellowships from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, and has been a Fulbright Scholar to India. She is a professor emerita at William Paterson University and now works as a writing coach and editor. She frequently gives talks around the country and abroad and serves as a Board member for Pen Parentis.