The Nebraska Summer Writers' Conference

Special Content

What’s The Story With This Painting?—Exploring the Short-Short Fiction Format Through Art

This workshop for high school students will be on Saturday, May 31st from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Sheldon Museum of Art. Participants will get an overview of the short-short as a literary art form and will then write their own short-short based on one of the paintings in the Sheldon’s permanent collection.

As an added bonus, students may also enter their short-short work in the NSWC High School Writing Contest, wherein the contest winner will receive a free week-long workshop at this year’s Nebraska Summer Writers’ Conference, held from June 16th -20th. At the conference, writers from across the country work in a variety of genres and formats with nationally published, award-winning authors. Entries will be judged by Timothy Schaffert, NSWC Conference Director and author of The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God and Devils in the Sugar Shop.

Schedule of events for May 31:

2:00 - 2:15 pm: Workshop Introductions

2:15 - 3:00 pm: Introduction and Overview of the Short-Short with discussion of a few representative examples

3:00 - 3:10 pm: Restroom and Water Break

3:10 - 4:00 pm: Students will write their own short-short based on a painting from the Sheldon’s permanent collection