All Over Again: Translating Lived Experience into Prose In-Person
Join us at the Library for a writing workshop with Warren Stoddard, an April Writer-in-Residence with The Community Library at the historic Hemingway House.
The workshop begins with a brief craft talk on confidence, instinct, Hemingway's iceberg theory, and the art of distilling lived experience into resonant prose. From there, we’ll step beyond the room—weather willing—for a short wander, an invitation to notice light, texture, fragments of overheard conversation. Participants will then spend twenty minutes shaping a paragraph or two from these fresh impressions, allowing image and instinct to lead. Then we'll gather to workshop pieces offered by those who wish to share. We’ll close with a brief discussion on how character can be incorporated into these settings—and how this practice of watchfulness, compression, and courage might extend beyond our time together.
- Date:
- Saturday, April 4, 2026
- Time:
- 3:00pm - 5:00pm
- Time Zone:
- Mountain Time - US & Canada (change)
- Location:
- Idaho Room
- Campus:
- The Community Library
- Audience:
- Adults
- Categories:
- Classes & Discussions
Warren Stoddard II was born and raised in the Hill Country of central Texas. He received a BA in English from Texas State University, where he graduated from the Honors College. Following his graduation from Texas State in 2018, he traveled to Syria, joining the international wing of the YPG—the Kurdish militia leading the fight against the Islamic State. He was later wounded in action there while liberating the city of Ash Sha’fah from ISIS control. He returned to the United States and lived in Birmingham, Alabama for five years, where he worked as a bouncer, a wastewater technician, a freelance writer, and a vintage motorcycle mechanic. In 2022, he volunteered in the international response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He was a founding member of the Dark Angels, distributing humanitarian aid throughout the country and serving alongside Ukrainian units in the defense of the city of Mykolaiv.
He is currently an MFA candidate at San Diego State University. His research focuses on Hemingway and McCarthy, analyzing the relationship between human conflict and literature.
Stoddard is the author of a novella, No Birds in Yesterday, and a short story collection, A Good Place on the Banks of the Euphrates. His short work has been published in literary magazines around the world, where it has been recognized as Notable Literary Nonfiction in The Best American Essays: 2021, nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and won the Gates Thomas Award for Fiction. He is a recipient of the Presidential Graduate Research Fellowship and the Prebys Poetry and Creative Writing Award at San Diego State.