Cyn Vargas’s debut explores the whims and follies of the heart. When a mother disappears in Guatemala, her daughter refuses to accept she’s gone; a divorced DMV employee falls in love during a driving lesson; a young girl shares a well-kept family secret; a bad haircut is the last straw in a crumbling marriage.
The This Handbook Will Change Your Life series is part of the This Blog Will Change Your Life cultural and lifestyle empire. The Handbooks are brimming with esoterica and ephemera, and they are life-changing, yes always, that is our mission.
Cyn Vargas’ short story collection, On The Way, received positive reviews from Shelf Awareness, Library Journal, Heavy Feather Review, Necessary Fiction, among others. Book accolades include: Book Scrolling’s Best Short Story Collections of All Time, Newcity Lit’s Top 5 Fiction Books by Chicago Authors, Chicago Book Review’s Favorite Books of 2015, Bustle’s 11 Short Story Collections Your Book Club Will Love, and Chicago Writers Association 2015 Book of the Year Honorable Mention.
Cyn’s prose and essays have been widely published and she received a Top 25 Finalist and Honorable Mention in two of Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers Contests, is the recipient of the Guild Literary Complex Prose Award in Fiction, a company member of the award-winning storytelling organization 2nd story, on the Board of Directors for Hypertext Studio, twice selected as artist-in-residence at the Ragdale Foundation and is Core Faculty at StoryStudio Chicago. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago and is currently working on her first novel.
Come and join me on any of the below events, classes, or workshops. Hope to see you soon!
Full draft of your short story complete - ✓. Now what? Wondering how many revisions it will take before it's ready to send out? Need to learn some revision techniques? Your draft is in the mist of what's next and this workshop series will focus on enhancing and elevating your current draft in order to submit for publication. In addition to the instructor providing constructive feedback, the students will also workshop each other's stories. And when the draft is ready, time to discuss publication! Where, how, when do you submit? Learn some tips from getting your story on the page to getting your story out in the literary world.
Requirements: Come ready to work! Students need to have a complete first draft of their short story before the first class. Students will be expected to work on their stories in between classes and for some of the weeks, read another student(s) work.
Week 1: Overview of revision process; discussion on how to give and receive constructive feedback; reading an excerpt from your complete draft out loud.
Week 2: Turn in revision before class 2. During class 2, you will receive one-on-one feedback from myself and will workshop with others in the class.
Week 3: Bring a hard copy of revision 3 to class. Tackle outstanding questions, feedback during class. HEAVY REVISING IN CLASS.
Week 4: Bring a hard copy of revision 3 to class. Tackle outstanding questions, feedback during class. HEAVY REVISING IN CLASS.
Week 5: Turn in revision before class 5. During class 5, you will receive one-on-one feedback from myself and will workshop with others in the class. Will revise in class.
Week 6: Bring in final copies. Read out loud from work. Discuss publication and next steps. Let's get your story out there!