Learn to fictionalize a historical person

Sequim author Sally Bays, an artist in residence at Hypatia-in-the-Woods in Shelton, conducts a historical character workshop from 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Marmo Gallery, 217 W. Cota St., downtown Shelton.

Admission is free. Everyone is welcome.

In an email response to questions from the Journal, Bays said participants will learn how to pick historical figures or historical archetypes and "create them into literary characters."

"This will include ideas about what goes into the research process, how to give the character depth, and how to choose which narrative to write," she wrote. "I have writing activities interspersed, because that is the fun part. This workshop is actually designed to be the first of three in a series, so I have taken elements of the others and tucked them in as well, so that everyone comes away with a cohesive story seedling. Participants can expect a few extra suggestions about word building and narrative tension tucked in."

Bays grew up in a logging community in the foothills of Mount Hood outside of Corbett, Oregon. Her mother rented a tiny house on a 100-acre farm, where Bays wandered the woods and pastures and made up stories in her head.

"My Grandpa was a storyteller, as was my mom," she wrote. "My mom was the first adult that I watched researching and writing her stories, which made it normal for me. She wasn't interested in publishing; just the action of creating was enough for her, but it modeled the art of creating, for sake of creating."

Bays said she grew up in conservative household, so her favorite authors as a kid were Christian fiction writers Bodie Thoene and Gilbert Morris.

"When I was 14, I stumbled upon Kurt Vonnegut and read everything of his in the library, and then the summer I was 17, the boy I had a crush on gave me a copy of a (John) Steinbeck anthology which led me to my love of American Realism," she wrote.

Bays said she wrote prolifically as a child and then majored in English, with an eye on being a middle school English teacher. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Colorado State University.

"I instead chose to be a stay-at-home mom and dabble in other things for a few years," she wrote.

"When my oldest son was 13, we started playing Dungeons and Dragons together with a DM [dungeon master] that required us to write backstory for our characters," she wrote. "It had been a few years since I had written anything of note, but the 500-word assignment quickly turned into 20 pages. I enrolled in grad school six months later and graduated two summers ago with a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing through Eastern Kentucky University. There I honed my narrative voice and was inspired to start teaching again."

Bays writes mostly fiction but has dabbled in flash-creative nonfiction. She wrote a 10-minute play about "purity culture" in the 1990s that she is polishing. She was recently named a finalist in the Historic Novelist of North America short story contest and will be published in its anthology this summer.

"Mostly I like the process of researching and writing," she wrote. "Publishing is nice, but there is so much drama to it. I love the process of creating narrative."

At Hypatia-in-the-Woods, Bays is working on a fiction trilogy. She is shopping the first book to agents and has written the first draft of the sequel and part of the third book.

"This week is all about editing that second book now that it has been sitting for six months," she wrote. "It is currently sitting at a cozy 600 pages and there may be some to trim. Or not; I like it the way it is."

IF YOU GO

WHO: Sequim author Sally Bays

WHAT: Historical character workshop

WHEN: 2-4 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Marmo Gallery, 217 W. Cota St., downtown Shelton

ADMISSION: Free