How to Write a Short Story That Only You Can Write

Stories have been told for centuries. There is no new story to be told. Still, every now and then, we encounter a story that we are convinced we have never seen before. A story that captures something so specific and still makes us feel less alone. How do we tell a story that is singularly yours? How do we learn from the masters, and still center ourselves in our stories? In this session, Deepa Rajagopalan will help writers navigate these questions and more.

Instructor: Deepa Rajagopalan won the 2021 PEN Canada New Voices Award for her short story “Peacocks of Instagram.” Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in literary magazines such as Rhe New Quarterly, Room Magazine, The Malahat Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, EVENT magazine, The Quarantine Review, and the anthologies Bristol Short Story Prize 2023, The Unpublished City Vol. II. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph, and a certificate in Creative Writing from the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies.

Born in Saudi Arabia, Deepa moved to India as an adolescent, and later to the United States and Canada in her twenties. She works in the tech industry in Toronto. 

Her first book of short fiction, Peacocks of Instagram, is forthcoming from Astoria/House of Anansi in 2024. She is now working on her first novel, We Have Come Empty Handed, about a disparate group of Indian workers in Saudi Arabia, whose lives become entangled, caught in the exigencies of war, deception, and intolerance.