Today on our blog we have a Q & A with writer Nora Nadjarian, who will be leading a zoom workshop for us in February – Making The Ordinary Extraordinary. What is it that transforms the everyday? It’s a different way of looking at things, a shift in consciousness, a change in language. Sometimes a single word will make a difference. In this workshop we’ll read micros and flash which deal with everyday subjects, and you will be prompted to write your own, making the ordinary extraordinary through words. BUY TICKETS HERE.
What made you choose this particular topic for your session?
There should always be an element of surprise in writing which draws you and your reader in, and the surprise that comes from what you thought was ‘ordinary’ is all the more powerful because it is unexpected. Don’t discount the ordinary. Don’t be afraid to make your characters do seemingly ordinary things. No matter how banal or mundane you think a subject is, you can make it come to life. It is up to you as a writer to spring the surprise, to reveal the extraordinary, through your writing.
What do you hope participants will get out of it?
They will be introduced to selected flash and micros, which we will read and discuss as a group, and there will be guided writing in response to prompts. Participants will come away with lots of new ideas and with drafts of two or three out-of-the-ordinary stories.
Do you have a favourite piece of writing that reflects this topic? Either your own or someone else’s.
I have too many favourites to list here but “Leftover” by Glen Pourciau beautifully illustrates how a seemingly innocuous, quite ordinary visit can tell us so much about the fraught relationship and tension between two people. Dialogue is used to great effect and we are left with a vivid sense of the main character’s desperation and loneliness.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’ve just completed a novella-in-flash, so I’m taking a short break before embarking on my next project. I am also editing a collection of flashes and micros. As well as short fiction I also write poetry, and a full collection is being published by Broken Sleep Books later this year – so I’m very busy!
Where can we find out more about you and your writing?
My writing news and links to my writing are on my website, www.noranadjarian.com, where you will also find details of the writing workshops I am leading this year.
I am also on Twitter @NoraNadj
Nora Nadjarian is a poet and writer from Cyprus. She has been commended or placed in numerous competitions, including the Live Canon International Poetry Competition 2020 and the Mslexia Poetry Competition 2021. Her work was included in Being Human (Bloodaxe Books, 2011), Capitals (Bloomsbury, 2017), The Stony Thursday Book (Ireland, 2018) and Europa 28 (Comma Press, 2020). She represented Cyprus in the Hay Festival’s Europa28: Visions for the Future in 2020. Her short fiction has appeared, among others, in Sand Journal, FRiGG, MoonPark Review and Lunate and was chosen for Wigleaf‘s Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2022 (selected by Kathy Fish). She has led successful creative writing workshops for the Flash Fiction Festival (2019 and 2022), the Wirral Poetry Festival and the Cheltenham Poetry Festival (2021), the Crow Collective and Retreat West (2022).