Join us as we write short pieces exploring the ugliness around us, in search of something beautiful. We’ll examine work by Rebecca Gayle Howell, Jim Harrison, and Beth Ann Fennelly – the moves, the turns – and play with the constructs of expectation to create the unexpected. In other words, be prepared to write pieces that are so horrible and yet so beautiful at the same time. We will write pieces that push the boundaries between forgiveness and what we have learned to hate – our losses, fears, our insecurities – as an act of embrace, reconciliation, and through (often dark) humor. We will be honest about our complicities. We will be admitting truths about our failures. We will be digging up bodies. The work we will do, the attention we give, will be our path to finding something to love. Anything to love. Even now. Especially now.

Ray McManus is the author of three books of poetry: Punch, Red Dirt Jesus, and Driving through the Country before You were Born. He is the co-editor of the anthology Found New. His poetry and prose have appeared in many journals and anthologies, most recently South Carolina Review, Prairie Schooner, and Talking River. Ray is a Professor of English at USC-Sumter, where he directs the South Carolina Center for Oral Narrative. He is the Writer in Residence at the Columbia Museum of Art, and Chair of the Board of Governors of the South Carolina Academy of Authors.