IN PERSON Using Fictional Techniques to Craft a Powerful Personal Essay
6 weeks | Wednesdays | Begins February 11, 2026 | 10am-12pm
Instructor: Elizabeth Haynes
MEMBER PRICE: $240.00
NON-MEMBER PRICE: $325.00
Learn to craft personal essays using common fiction techniques. Through a combination of lecture, writing exercises and examples you'll examine ways of creating more engaging real life stories through the use of fictional techniques such as imagery, dialogue, character, structure and more. You will have the opportunity to share your work and send up to five pages of writing per week to the instructor for feedback.
We will read and discuss examples from contemporary essayists and discuss issues such as vulnerability, writing about living people and recreating scenes and dialogue from memory
This course is designed for all writers at any stage who want to bring more vibrancy to their personal stories.
This class takes place IN PERSON at the Alexandra Writers Centre Society.
Elizabeth Haynes is a fiction and essay writer. Her collection of personal essays, Food for the Journey: a life in travel, was published in May 2025 (Thistledown Press) and appeared on the CBC’s 46 non-fiction books to read list. Elizabeth’s essays have appeared numerous magazines and anthologies, most recently You Look Good for your Age (University of Alberta Press). Her short fiction collection, Speak Mandarin not Dialect (Thistledown Press) was an Alberta Book Award finalist. Her short stories have won the Western Magazine Award and the American Heart Award for fiction. Elizabeth’s first novel The Errant Husband (Radiant Press) was published in 2021. She was the 2023 Writer in Residence at the Calgary Public Library and is the Alberta/NWT/Nunavut representative for The Writers’ Union of Canada.
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