River City Fiction

This week I was thrilled to meet Léna Roy, author of EDGES. A big thank you goes to Fountain Bookstore for hosting Léna’s reading and writing workshop, Mining Your Life For Your Fiction. And, of course, I cannot thank Léna enough for coming all the way to Virginia and for forming a new friendship.

After Léna’s appearance on Virginia This Morning and signing stock at Books-A-Million, we toured Richmond with stops for coffee, lunch, and obsessive checking for the interview clip. (Okay, so I was the one hitting refresh every couple minutes, while Léna played it cool.) Then we headed to Fountain Bookstore for the day’s main event.

A diverse group of folks came for the writing workshop. Léna had us break the ice by sharing two truths and a lie about ourselves, a perfect introduction to mining our background for fiction. First on the agenda, we pulled an item from our bags or pockets and wrote our emotions and history associated with the object. Next, we picked a pair of shoes someone in the group wore and imagined a character to fill them. We then closed our eyes and envisioned a space–room, field, or public space. Finally, we gave our character a desire and placed her in the setting along with our object.

Tomorrow I’ll share about Léna’s reading and signing at Fountain.