Writers at Work: Rebecca Makkai

Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 4:30 p.m., Fourth Floor Program Room, free & open to the public

Rebecca Makkai is a novelist and author of The Great Believers, shortlisted for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2018 National Book Awards and winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal.  She has previously published The Hundred-Year House (winner of the Chicago Writers Association Award), The Borrower, and a short-story collection called Music for Wartime. In addition to the Andrew Carnegie Medal, Makkai is the recipient of the 2017 Pushcart Prize for her short fiction. Her books have been translated into ten languages, and her short fiction has been anthologized in The Pushcart Prize XLI, The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, New Stories from the Midwest, and Best American Fantasy.  Her work has also been featured in publications such as Harper’s and Tin House, and on Public Radio International’s Selected Shorts and This American Life.

About Craft Talk: I’m Stuck

A remarkable number of novel drafts never make it past page 50; many short stories don’t make it past page 3. It’s not that your muse has abandoned you, and it’s not that your idea was a non-starter. You’re probably making some common mistakes that dry a story out too quickly, that leave a writer with nowhere to go. Or perhaps you’re simply daunted by the enormity of the distance between Point A and Point Z. Rebecca Makkai can share concrete techniques for getting out of the rut and back on track, as well as what to do next time so you don’t get stuck in the first place.