Workshop: Elaine Neil Orr

We are thrilled to have Elaine Neil Orr bring her workshop to the store. Topic: "Shape Your Writing By Thinking Outside the Box: How to Get Started"

Acclaimed NC novelist Elaine Neil Orr will lead participants in making a clay sculpture of something that inspires them, from fast-drying clay (provided.) A sculpture inspired the main character in Elaine's newest novel, Dancing Woman. Elaine will speak about how using one art form or exercise can open a door for writers to get started, even if you don’t quite know what you want to write. In this case, using a sculpture can lead to finding a beginning in your prose.

Elaine Neil Orr is the author of six books and dozens of essays, short stories, poems, and reviews. Her current novel, Dancing Woman (Blair), was a finalist for the Sir Walter Raleigh Award, was named a silver medalist in the May Sarton Awards for historical fiction, and is currently a Foreword Indie Award Finalist for literary fiction. Her earlier books include the novels A Different Sun and Swimming Between Worlds, Finalist for the 2019 Phillip H. McMath Post-Publication Book Award in Fiction and longlisted for the Clara Johnson Award for Women’s Literature. She is also the author of a memoir, Gods of Noonday, a White Girl’s African Life.

She was born and grew up in Nigeria, the daughter of ex-pat parents. All of her creative writing is compelled by one idea: the search for home. She is professor of English at N.C. State University and serves on the faculty of the Naslund-Mann Brief-Residency MFA in Writing Program at Spalding University in Louisville. She lives in Raleigh with her husband, Andy.