Sharon Oard Warner

Sharon Oard Warner

Upcoming Opportunities

The 8th Annual Taos Writing Conference

Keynote Speak­er: Ali­son Hedge Coke
Pre­sent­ed by SOMOS, a Place for Words in Taos

Fri­day, July 19, to Sun­day, July 21, 2024

Vis­it the SOMOS: Taos for details: fee and registration.

Ear­ly Bird reg­is­tra­tion by end of day, June 17, 2024
All reg­is­tra­tions close on July 11, 2024

Some of the ses­sions are avail­able online via ZOOM.

Sharon Oard Warn­er (F) – online only via Zoom
Writ­ing the Novella

Why write a novel­la? And why write one before embark­ing on a nov­el? Because the novel­la is the inter­me­di­ate form: It’s more expan­sive than a short sto­ry, but trim­mer than a nov­el. Novel­las used to be con­sid­ered awkward—too long to fit com­fort­ably in the pages of most lit­er­ary mag­a­zines and too short to be pub­lished alone. But, in our cur­rent cul­ture, the novel­la is, to quote Debra Sparks: “Goldilocks form, not too much this and not too much that but just right.”

Browse any of the dozens of novel­la lis­ti­cles online and see what I mean:

In this three-hour Zoom class, you will learn about the his­to­ry and struc­ture of the novel­la. We’ll sort out the dis­tinc­tions between short sto­ries, novel­las, and nov­els. Final­ly, I will pro­pose a method for draft­ing a novel­la of your very own. We’ll con­clude by brain­storm­ing and shar­ing ideas.

Watch an inter­view with Sharon Oard Warn­er.

Down­load the Taos Writ­ing Con­fer­ence fly­er.

SOMOS Taos

Taos Writ­ing Conference

SOMOS Taos
108 Civic Plaza Dr
Taos, NM 87571

Fac­ul­ty

Alli­son Hedge Coke
Sawnie Mor­ris
Cather­ine Strisik
Veron­i­ca Golos
Min­rose Gwin
Sharon Oard Warn­er
Lau­ren Camp
Jamie Figueroa
Alle­gra Hus­ton
Con­nie Josefs
Valerie Mar­tinez
John­ny Bog­gs
Sean Mur­phy
Leti­tia Gomez
Julia Gold­berg
Tom­my Archule­ta
Jean-Marie Sapor­i­to
Lau­ren Bjork­man
Mark Lip­man
Susan­nah Simp­son
Susan Mihal­ic

English 424: Advanced Creative Writing Workshop: Script

(Online Max)
Eight-week Sum­mer Ses­sion (June 6 to August 1)

Human beings are addict­ed to sto­ries. Most of us rec­og­nize a good one when we see or hear it because we humans are lit­er­al­ly wired to lis­ten and learn from nar­ra­tives.  Writ­ing a good sto­ry does not come as nat­u­ral­ly as lis­ten­ing or watch­ing one. Like all skills, we learn through engage­ment and ener­gy. In this course, we will begin with an overview of tra­di­tion­al three-act struc­ture.  Over the course of the semes­ter, we will address all the impor­tant issues involved in screen­writ­ing: idea, struc­ture, char­ac­ter, scene, dia­logue, and action. Stu­dents will learn about and prac­tice film and tele­vi­sion screen­play struc­ture and com­plete both a beat sheet and a short script.  Those enrolled should expect to view fea­ture films, read sev­er­al screen­plays (both short and fea­ture-length), and par­tic­i­pate in small-group workshops.

University of New Mexico
Novella Workshop
Uni­ver­si­ty of Iowa Sum­mer Novel­la Work­shop 2021