Events & Programs

“America is my country and Paris is my hometown,” wrote Gertrude Stein. She was certainly not the only expatriate to feel this way. Other celebrated Left Bank inhabitants include brilliant writers and cultural figures like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, James Joyce and Sylvia Beach—as well as their sometimes overlooked, talented neighbors. Among them, luminous writers such as Edith Wharton, Djuna Barnes, George Orwell, Lawrence Durrell, Janet Flanner and Allen Ginsberg, to name a few.

In this workshop, we’ll look at extracts from the work of some of these authors that will serve as departure points for our own explorations on the page. Through brief, focused exercises taking inspiration from the writings of Left Bank authors, we’ll work on generating and developing ideas in your own prose and poetry. Benefit from interaction and exchanges with participants and constructive feedback on your writing.

About the workshop leader:

Heather Hartley is Paris Editor for Tin House magazine and is the author of Knock Knock (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2010). Her poems, essays and interviews have appeared in or on PBS Newshour, The Guardian, The Rumpus and other venues and numerous anthologies, including Food and Booze: A Tin House Literary Feast. She has curated Shakespeare & Company Bookshop’s weekly reading series, and has taught writing and poetry at the American University of Paris.