Upcoming Events: Where You Can Find Us
Here’s a look at our upcoming online events, plus third-party event where you can find our authors and editors! [You may also view past events by using the month view and scrolling back.]
Deep Dive: Mining Your Obsessions: Writing (Nearly) Endless Essays On One Subject (Elizabeth Austin)
Deep Dives are intensive/generative 90-minute workshops, with two options to choose from each day during HippoCamp Weekend; these are NOT included in the main ticket package and require separate registration. Registration is limited to 20 attendees; we suggest signing up early.
About the Session
We all have obsessions: the subjects, relationships, and questions we can’t stop writing toward, whether we mean to or not. In this generative workshop, we’ll treat these topics as a renewable resource. Through a structured exploration, you’ll dig into the patterns hiding in your existing work — recurring images, emotional landscapes — and turn them into a visual thematic map you can mine for years.
In this session, writers will:
- excavate patterns, working to surface recurring images, tensions, and questions.
- build personal thematic maps, placing a core focus at the center with 3–5 satellite themes radiating out, then spotting the intersections where unexpected new essays are born.
- generate at least five fresh essay ideas using six concrete strategies, plus tactics for matching themes to submission calls
- study how the pros do it, looking at writers who’ve mined the same territory for decades across forms and genres
Open to writers at all levels, whether you’re assembling an essay collection, hunting for the through line in a memoir, or simply tired of feeling like you write “the same things.” No pre-class reading required.
Elizabeth Austin’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, Harper’s Bazaar, Electric Literature, Narratively, McSweeney’s, and others. She has been awarded residencies including Sewanee, Hedgebrook, and Turning Points. She holds an M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts, writes a newsletter on her writing and post-cancer family life, and lives outside of Philly with her two kids and many pets.
TICKET INFO
You may register for this event a la carte, independent of the full HippoCamp Online Weekend. (But if you would like to attend other sessions or the entire event, you can learn more here.)
This session is limited to 20 attendees for optimal engagement with speaker and each other; we suggest signing up as early as possible to secure your seat. Note: Deep Dives are using the Zoom meeting format where all attendees will be on screen.
