2027 Intensives: Dialogue in Fiction (Registration deadline December 1)
2027 Fiction Intensives
"Be Careful on the Stairs": Writing Dialogue in Fiction
If you are writing fiction--short story, novella, novel--and your stories include dialogue, this class is for you.
This year's intensives workshops will focus on conversations. The most productive dialogue is engaging and revealing while furthering character and plot development. Together, participants will look at some great fictional exchanges, learn from regional writers, and offer suggestions on one another's stand-alone or excerpted scenes.
We will meet at LOOP Youngstown Arts & Culture Center on the 2nd Saturday of the month from January to May, bookended by virtual/recorded sessions in December and June. Live sessions begin at 10:00am and end by 3:00pm. Seating is limited. All experience levels are welcome. The cost of the workshop is $225, due on the first day of workshop, January 9.
Regional fiction writers will lead us through a close reading of that day's submitted scenes, and writers will receive helpful and respectful feedback.
Each participant will workshop (two) 2-8pp. stand-alone or excerpted scenes. Workshop dates will be assigned by December 1. Enrollees should be prepared to submit a piece in mid-December for the January workshop (some of you will receive a January assignment, so we are asking you to please be ready!).
Bonus: six of this year's First Wednesday Reader Series fiction writers will offer a one-on-one manuscript review from 5:30-6:30pm at Westside Bowl before their reading. This $50 add-on will be assigned on a first-come basis.
Intensives schedule (read more about these writers below)
December 1 (virtual) 3:00pm Janet Beard
January 9 Eric Harper
February 13 David Swerdlow
March 13 Dante DelBene
April 10 Mike Dittman
May 8 Jennifer Bannan
June (virtual, TBD) Rachel Swearingen
Add-on manuscript review (read more about these writers below)
February 3 Kelly Ferguson, David Swerdlow March 3 Janet Beard April 7 Jennifer Bannan June 2 Michael Credico, Meghan Louise Wagner
JENNIFER BANNAN's story collection, TAMIAMI TRAIL: MIAMI STORIES (2025) was a Best Of release in the Southern Review of Books and was a finalist in the Eyelands International Awards. Her first collection, INVENTING VICTOR, also from Carnegie Mellon University Press, was published in 2003. More about the author at jenniferbannan.com.
From East Tennessee, Janet Beard studied screenwriting at NYU and earned an MFA in creative writing from The New School. Her novels are Beneath the Pines (2008), international bestseller The Atomic City Girls (2018) and The Ballad of Laurel Springs (2021). Janet has lived and worked in Australia, England, Boston, and Columbus, Ohio, where she is raising a daughter and working on a new novel. She is the recipient of a 2022 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in Fiction.
Michael Credico is the author of Technicolor Horses (Autumn House Press, 2027), and Heartland Calamitous (Autumn House Press, 2020), which was longlisted for the Story Prize and the PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection. He is an editor for the Cleveland Review of Books. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio. His website is www.michaelcredico.com.
Dante DelBene is a writer and cinematographer whose professional writing experience includes ad copy and commercial scripts for regional and national brands, as well as a byline in Hypefresh,a news and pop-culture magazine out of Philadelphia. His short fiction has been published in SLAB, Olney Magazine, HASH Journal, RedCoyote, Volney Road Review, and Stoneboat. His career in the production industry inspired a novel about a filmmaker who stumbles upon a humanitarian tragedy that pulls the curtain on content creation.
Michael Dittman is a professor of English and Creative Writing. He is the author of Who Holds the Devil, Small Brutal Incidents, and Jack Kerouac: A Biography. His latest novel, The Smoky City, will be published in 2028. His drama, fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have been widely published and anthologized.
Eric Harper is a film and television producer living in Ohio, whose work includes Discovery Channel’s Fat N’ Furious: Rolling Thunder, and the independent feature film Looking for the Jackalope. He is also the writer and director of the modern-day western/crime film Slow Time, which was shot entirely on location in Cisco, Utah.
Rachel Swearingen is the author of the prize-winning story collection How to Walk on Water. Her writings have appeared in Electric Lit, The Missouri Review, Kenyon Review, Agni and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago and teaches for the graduate writing program at Northwestern University School of Professional Studies.
David Swerdlow has published four collections of poetry, including Empty the River (2025) and Nightstand (2023) with Broadstone Books. His work has appeared in Poetry, American Poetry Review, Iowa Review, West Branch, and elsewhere. The recipient of numerous awards, Swerdlow teaches literature and creative writing at Westminster College.
