History leaves gaps. Official records lie by omission. The archive preserves what power wanted preserved — and erases almost everything else.

For writers of historical fiction, diaspora narratives, and family sagas, those silences aren't obstacles. They're where the story lives.

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

In this six-week workshop, novelist and American Book Award winner Maisy Card guides intermediate fiction writers through archival research as a creative act — not background preparation, but a living part of the writing itself.

Drawing on her experience researching These Ghosts Are Family across Jamaican colonial records, plantation documents, and family histories, Maisy explores how to read an archive critically, how to write into its absences, and how to transform historical materials into fully imagined fiction without losing their truth.

WHAT WE'LL COVER

— How to find and read archival sources — census records, ship manifests, oral histories, newspaper archives, letters, and photographs — as a fiction writer

— Techniques for writing into the gaps: what the record doesn't say

— The ethics of imagining lives from fragmentary evidence

— Published models: how writers like Toni Morrison, Edward P. Jones, Dionne Brand, and John Keene have used and transformed historical sources

— Workshop critique of your own pages in progress

HOW IT WORKS

Weeks 1 & 2 — Finding the Archive: Each session opens with a craft talk and close reading of published work, followed by a generative writing exercise completed in class, and group discussion. We begin with the archive itself — how to find it, how to read it as a writer, and how to let it generate story.

Week 3 — Writing into the Gaps: We turn to craft: how do you write what the record doesn't say? How do you imagine lives from fragmentary evidence, and do it ethically? Generative exercises and discussion, with close reading of published models. We will also hold our first workshop.

Weeks 4, 5 & 6 — Workshop: You'll submit 5–10 pages from your work in progress before week four. We'll workshop all ten students across the final three sessions, with written feedback from Maisy on every submission.

All sessions meet via Zoom. Two hours per week. All participants will have the option of workshopping up to 20 pages of writing and will receive written feedback along with a thirty-minute one-on-one conference with the instructor.

ABOUT MAISY

Maisy Card is a fiction writer, educator, and public librarian of thirteen years based in Newark, NJ. Her debut novel, These Ghosts Are Family (Simon & Schuster, 2020), won the American Book Award and the OCM Bocas Prize in Fiction, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her second novel, Difficult Patrons, is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster in June 2027. She has taught fiction at Columbia University's MFA program and at the Tin House and Colgate Writers Conferences.

IS THIS WORKSHOP FOR YOU?

This workshop is for intermediate or advanced fiction writers with a project in progress — a novel, story collection, or long-form work that engages with history, family legacy, diaspora, or inherited trauma. You don't need to have an archive in hand. You need to have a story that wants one.

This is NOT a beginner workshop. Students should have some experience writing and workshopping fiction.