What is this writing series about?
A list can be far more than something we take to the grocery store or a tool we use to prioritize our day. In creative writing, lists can do much heavy lifting, giving order to chaos, condensing and prioritizing large swaths of information, aligning our purpose, giving boundaries to what we want to share with our readers, providing a starting point, and making us feel a sense of accomplishment. Using list-structures can also make writing a novel-length project or a chapter or a poem more accessible. The simple structure of a list does not lessen the depth of a story, but can often enhance it. Here is one of my favorite list-structured books: I Am, I am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death by Maggie O’Farrell; and poems: The Soils I Have Eaten by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Things you Didn’t Put on Your Resume by Joyce Sutphen.
Sometimes the tool of using a list in creative writing can be overt. Other times, it is embedded as a story within a story. A list can also be ninja-like: readers may not always pick up on the fact that they are reading a list. A list structure is one of the containers that holds space for a good story and sometimes, as a writer, a container is all we need to know how to begin.
Beginning on Thursday, September 18th, I will be starting a 6-week writing workshop called For the Love of Lists. This series is for any level of writer. We will be reading examples of published writing as well as creating new work. What I love about studying structure is that, as writers, it gives us or reminds us of different ways of approaching our stories. And finding new ways to tell stories and surprising ourselves with our writing is where the delight comes in.
Dates: September 18, 25, October, 2, 9, 16, and 23, 2025
Times: 6pm – 8pm each day.
Cost: $240.
Location: Almonte Town Hall – 14 Bridge Street, Almonte, in the meeting room on the 2nd floor.
To register, please email jesscarson@gmail.com. Payment can be made by e-transfer to jesscarson@gmail.com, or email to make alternative arrangements.
What will we do in the series?
– Each week, read 1-2 short examples of creative writing and a craft essay
– Discuss the examples – what is the story about? What effect does the story have? What tools did the writer use to create this effect?
– Generate six new pieces of writing that you can keep in a short form or grow into something longer
– Share one new piece of writing (produced for the workshop) with group
– Give/receive supportive feedback on the shared piece of writing
– Build on or nourish your local creative community of writers (we need each other!)
– (Re)discover your delight in writing!
Who is this series for?
Everyone is welcome. These exercises can be done for those writing non-fiction or fiction, though most examples used will be non-fiction. This workshop can help you create new work or approach old stories that haven’t quite worked in the way that you have tried to tell them. This series is especially for anyone who is looking to (gasp!) have fun with their writing practice (again).
Who is the teacher?
Jessie Carson is the Creative Director of Almonte Readers and Writers and has been a professional writer for over a decade. She teaches Communications at Algonquin College in Ottawa, CA as well as creative writing workshops in her community. Her writing is most often an inquiry into the themes of motherhood, loss, and how stories live in the body and through generations.
As an MFA student at the University of King’s College in Nova Scotia, she is pursuing a degree in Creative Non-Fiction writing.
She has published in a variety of print and online magazines and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, long-listed for CBC Canada Writes, a finalist for the Malahat Review Non-Fiction Open Season Awards and awarded 2nd place in the Writer’s Federation of New Brunswick’s non-fiction competition.
This workshop is presented with community support by Almonte Readers & Writers.
