How to Finish a Novel

As the late Irish poet Eavan Boland used to advise her students, "The only way out is through." And yet, when we are bogged down in a work of several hundred pages, it can be difficult to see a way through to the end. In this 90 minute session, we will discuss several methods of puzzling our way to the end of our novels-in-progress. This will involve examining the sometimes treacherous structural path between the middle and the end, as well as various processes that might encourage us along that path. Participants are encouraged to ask questions.

Can’t make the live workshop? It will be recorded and sent out the following day.

About Lan Samantha Chang

Lan Samantha Chang is the author of The Family Chao (2022). Her other books include a novel and stories, Hunger, and the novels Inheritance and All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost. She has published fiction in The Atlantic and The Best American Short Stories. A recent Berlin Prize Fellow, she lives in Iowa City, where she is director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Registration opens soon