Instructor: Robin Lee Lovelace
Dates: 5 Thursdays: June 6, 13, 20, 27; skip July 4; July 11
Time: 7:00 – 9:00 pm EST
Location: Zoom
Cost: $300 Nonmembers, $210 Writer/Reader Members, $190 Senior, Teacher, Student, Military/Veteran, Librarian Members
*The cost of this class includes a $50 manuscript fee that is directly remitted to the instructor*

Short Fiction Writing is a five-week workshop, which includes discussions, exercises, and the critiquing of student projects. The focus is on creating publishable short stories.

Whether you are on your first draft , just have an idea and haven’t written it down yet, or your story needs a final polish, this workshop will provide writing tips, critiques of your work, publishing information, and ideas on where to submit.

MB Dabney will be a guest speaker on June 20 who will talk about his experience with getting short stories published, take questions, talk about the requirements of mystery and crime fiction, and talk about his experiences as a judge for writing competitions.

Let us help you to get your short story ready to submit, with a focus on getting your prose to shine like a diamond.

About the instructor:

Robin Lee Lovelace is a mixed-race writer from Indiana who usually writes short fiction. In 2017, Robin won the grand prize in a one-act play contest, presented by the 30XNinety theatre in Mandeville, a suburb of New Orleans. In March 2019, she won the Etchings Press annual competition for novellas for the novella, Savonne, Not Vonny.

Robin was named as an honoree in the Emerging Author category for the Indiana Author’s Awards in September 2020. Robin was one of the three finalists for the Don Belton Fiction Prize for 2021 for her collection of stories titled A Wild Region and a Stowe Story Labs SAG Indie Finalist for Savonne, Not Vonny in 2021. Also, in 2021, she won the Marguerite McGlinn short fiction prize for her story Uncle, awarded by Rosemont College and Philadelphia Stories. Robin was a Wildacres Retreat Diversity Scholarship winner in July 2023. A non-fiction essay that she wrote, called Different Times, Different Degrees, Same Shit appeared in the 2023 summer edition of Indiana Review. Robin has also placed or been shortlisted for numerous short story competitions.

Robin’s latest book is a collection of short stories titled A Wild Region that can be found for purchase on Amazon, Books-a-Million, and Barnes and Noble websites.

About the Guest Speaker:

MB Dabney is a retired award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in numerous local and national publications, including Indianapolis Monthly, the Indianapolis Business Journal, Ebony magazine, and Black Enterprise.com. He has co-edited two anthologies for the Speed City
chapter of Sisters in Crime – Decades of Dirt: Murder, Mystery and Mayhem from the Crossroads of Crime; and MURDER 20/20 – and has published numerous short mystery stories, including Miss Hattie Mae’s Secret (Decades of Dirt), Callipygian (The Fine Art of Murder), Killing Santa Claus (Homicide for the Holidays), and Black on Black in Black (The Fish That Got Away: The 2021 Sisters in Crime Guppy Anthology).  He was a co-writer and co-producer of Deadbeat, a one-act play produced by the chapter that debuted at the Indianapolis Fringe Festival in 2018.

Michael’s newest novel, A Deadly Game, A David Blaise Mystery (2023), is a prequel to his 2021 debut novel, An Untidy Affair.

The father of two adult daughters, Michael lives in Indianapolis with his wife, Angela.