Craft Talk: How to Write Endings | Arts + Literature Laboratory | Madison Contemporary Arts Center

Craft Talk: How to Write Endings

“I love the story/novel—but in the end, the end didn’t work for me” is an ironic rejection many a writer has gotten back from an editor. All good things must end, but how do you end a story? What makes an ending feel like the end, what actions, revelations close a story or novel successfully for the reader? We’ll talk about some classic narrative structures, famous endings and, together, brainstorm ideas for your own work. 

This project is funded in part by a grant from the Madison Arts Commission, with additional funds from the Wisconsin Arts Board.

Jesse Lee Kercheval is a poet, writer, visual artist and translator. Her most recent poetry collections are I Want to Tell You (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023) and Un pez dorado no te sirve para nada/ A Goldfish Buys You Nothing (Editorial Yaugurú, Uruguay, 2023). Her translations include Love Poems by Idea Vilariño and The Invisible Bridge: Selected Poems of Circe Maia (University of Pittsburgh Press). She is the Zona Gale Professor Emerita of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 

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