Digital Program: Hooking the Reader: Polishing Your First Line and First Page

This workshop will explore the elements of a good opening for a story: how to hook the reader and how to get them to turn from the first page to the second. Once they’ve done that, they’ve committed to your story! We’ll talk about what a good first line is and write one, how to keep the tension high, how to introduce character and setting. Writers with works-in-progress are encouraged to send their first pages, so we can share and workshop them together. Other examples will also be provided. Be prepared to write, discuss, and learn from one another.

Speaker Bio
Laurel S. Peterson is a Professor of English at Norwalk Community College. Her poetry has been published in many small literary journals. She has two poetry chapbooks: That’s the Way the Music Sounds, from Finishing Line Press (2009) and Talking to the Mirror from The Last Automat Press (2010). A full length collection of poetry, Do You Expect Your Art to Answer You? was released by Futurecycle Press in 2017. She served as poet laurete of Norwalk, CT from April 2016 – April 2019.

Registration is required to attend this program. You will receive a Zoom invitation the morning of the program.