A writing workshop as part of the 2026 To Taste Life Twice Seminar - three days of author talks and writing workshop. Registration is limited to 15 participants.

Instructor: Thomas Dai

How does one turn a relationship into an artful and compelling nonfiction story? This generative workshop invites writers to approach their intimate relationships as a problem of literary structure, form, and voice. Through writing prompts and short exercises, we will consider the patterns our relationships fall into, the conventions they follow or break, and how these patterns inform the shape and content of our essays, memoirs, and other personal writing projects. Love and romance are evergreen topics for the nonfiction writer, but not all relationships look the same, and neither should their stories. Besides overcoming our aversion to emotional vulnerability and risk, this workshop challenges writers of all backgrounds to move past easy narratives—all the tropes that haunt stories of dating, marriage, infidelity, or divorce—in order to unearth the unique resonance of their relationships, and to tell love's story in their own way, writing from their own grounded perspective.

Participants in this workshop will be provided with a few short excerpts by published writers, with an emphasis on queer and women authors who bring a distinctive point-of-view to amorous experience. These readings will serve as models for our discussion as well as our generative writing prompts. The practical goal of this workshop is to help writers jumpstart the drafting process, or to reframe already existing work they'd like to revise. Depending on where they are in the writing process, participants should bring a short nonfiction piece (3-5 pages) they'd like to expand and/or a set of notes on a story they'd like to begin writing. Writers of all comfort levels and experience are welcome in this workshop.