Great Beginnings. And our own. A Full Immersion Fiction Course with Ben Cheever in person at HVWC

“The first time I robbed Tiffany’s it was raining.” My father was pleased with the opening of his story, Montraldo. “That should hook the bottom feeders,” he told me with a bravado that was in no way characteristic. Sometimes as in the case of Look Homeward Angel—or anything else by Thomas Wolfe—there are practice swings before wood hits ball. (“Before the wood hits the ball”? )

I am not going to restrict our study to a single sentence, I want to hit that sweet spot.

My plan is to distribute copies of famous openings. You and I will read the texts aloud. I think that we can best improve our writing through the close examination of small formations of words.

Ben Cheever edited The Letters of John Cheever and has published four novels. Ben taught writing at The New School for Social Research. Ben has free-lanced for The New Yorker and The New York Times. He’s chin-deep in a book on Canis Lupus Familiaris. He lives in Pleasantville, New York. Note: While he has not won a significant prize, young Cheever is in the running for Writer of the Longest Course Description ever Posted for The Hudson Valley Writer’s Center.