Writing Co-Lab

If you’re dreaming of a season spent in Paris, the European capital of literature and art that has enamored people all over the world since time immemorial, look no further. This summer, we’re traveling from our armchairs—and couches, beds, hammocks, and wherever you love to tuck into your favorite books—with a reading club led by Paris-based travel writer, magazine editor, and Writing Co-Lab instructor Matt Ortile. Through a curated selection of essays, short stories, novels, and memoirs (complete works as well as excerpts) that will transport us to the City of Light. 

In this reading club focused on English-language works about Paris, we will read classic 20th-century expatriate authors like Hemingway and Baldwin, but also contemporary chroniclers of life in the French capital, from French-born novelist Sanaë Lemoine to American immigrant Sutanya Dacres. Together, we will examine the ways these writers paint their pictures of Paris, some of which pierce the veil of francophile fantasies (no Emily in Paris scripts here) to depict this often romanticized city in all its practical—and enchanting—realities.

This is a group for both readers and writers: Discussions will revolve not only around content and plot but also narrative techniques and literary craft. Additionally, there will be potential author visits, should the authors’ schedules allow. Furthermore, we will collaborate and build a library of recommendations for more of our favorite writing about Paris. And perhaps most excitingly, participants in this Reading Club will receive priority access to spots in a potential Writing Co-Lab retreat and workshop to take place in Paris next year.