Booktoberfest Workshop: Women with Agency, with Cheryl Lawson

This workshop is designed to help fiction writers build their awareness of character agency. We'll consider agency in lived experience and in the contexts of fiction and psychology, gaining useful insights on developing agency partnerships between men and women characters and approaching vulnerability, permission, and violence. Discussion will draw on popular fiction examples (such as The Hating Game, It Ends With Us, and The Twilight Saga) to illustrate the presence or lack of agency. If time allows, participants will create their own micro-fiction snippets that demonstrate their understanding of agency. While focusing on women characters, the workshop will address elements of agency that also apply to non-binary, trans, and other gender-marginalized characters. Space for this workshop is limited and offered on a first-come, first-served basis. About the instructor: Cheryl Lawson is an author and artist living in Nova Scotia. Cheryl came from South Africa almost twenty years ago, first living in British Columbia before settling in Nova Scotia recently. For over ten years, Cheryl has actively pursued her passion for writing. Her self-published work includes science fiction and poetry-photography books. In partnership with the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia and Support 4 Culture