Colette Sartor

Instructor Biography:

MFA, fiction writer, author of the linked story collection Once Removed (UGA Press) and winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. Ms. Sartor's work has appeared in Kenyon Review Online, Carve Magazine, Slice, The Rumpus, Colorado Review, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere.

Instructor Statement:

We all have stories to tell, about a girlfriend who beat up her would-be mugger, or the guy at the next table who told his date he could weld everything but the crack in her ass and a broken heart. But when aspiring writers sit down to write, they often find themselves frozen with fear, unable to figure out what to say. That’s because they don’t always have the tools they need to tell their stories. My goal is to arm my students with a creative toolbox that brims with the necessities for bringing a story to life: characters so full of desires and opinions that they won’t stop talking; conflicts that demand action and reaction; dialogue that sings and intrigues and informs; settings that become characters themselves, they’re so real. Through craft lectures, writing exercises, and discussion of published work and students’ own work, I help my students experiment with their new toolboxes in a supportive, nurturing environment so that they not only know what they want to say, they’re also able to hone their stories into their truest forms.

Our Students Say it Best!

“Ms. Sartor was excellent! She proved very knowledgeable, thorough, encouraging, and appropriately and professionally critical. All her methods and her style amounted to one thing: better writing! I loved her.”  — Writers’ Program Student

To watch a video of Colette reading from her work at the 2011 Writers’ Program Publication Party, click here.