Writing Workshop with Áine Greaney: He Said. She Said.

Great dialogue brings all narratives to life. In this workshop, author and educator Áine Greaney will present techniques on how to write great dialog in your non-fiction (memoir; personal essay) and fiction narratives.

In this interactive workshop, we will explore the following topics:

• Why dialogue? Reasons to get your characters talking to each other
• How written dialogue is different from real-life conversations
• The third thing: What’s happening "off camera,” and how to balance telling with talking
• Using dialect, accents or verbal tics
• Keeping the dialog content and speech tags simple and authentic-Editing our dialog for a stronger narrative 

An Irish native, Áine Greaney now lives and writes on the North Shore. In addition to her five published books of both fiction (the novels Dance Lessons and The Big House) and nonfiction, which includes the writer's guide Writer with a Day Job, her short works have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Salon, Another Chicago Magazine, The Boston Globe Magazine, The New York Times, Books Ireland, NPR/WBUR and other publications. As well as being an author, Greaney is a trained teacher who has designed and led fiction and non-fiction workshops, presentations and keynotes for regional, national and international organizations. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, cited in Best American Essays and named a ‘Great Group Read’ by the Women’s National Book Association. Her latest book, Trespassers and Other Stories, published in March.    

Teaching and speaking venues include: The National Writers Digest Conference; The Cape Cod Writers Conference; Saint John’s University, Minnesota; California State University, Chico; The Irish Writers Centre; The Arkansas Literary Festival; The New Hampshire Writers Project; The Newburyport Literary Festival; Boston Writing Workshop; The Frank O’ Connor Festival of the Short Story (Ireland); International Women’s Writing Guild; and others. 

Class is limited to 12.