THE LIMIT’S THE SKY: PURSUING FORMAL CONSTRAINTS IN PROSE
Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Lit Fest

As prose writers, we necessarily limit ourselves with formal choices: point of view, setting, etc. But what about further constraints? What if you want to write your novel as a series of text messages? Or use an unconventional structure for your otherwise conventional story? We’ll discuss the rewards of formal restrictions, including the way our creativity strengthens when it has something to push against, but we’ll also talk through the risks, such as a device becoming gimmicky. We’ll be interested in both the experimental (think Cortázar’s Hopscotch or the Oulipo writers) and subtler formal constraints. Fiction and nonfiction writers welcome.