The Porch Presents: Craft & Reading Series with Justin Taylor

How can a sentence move beyond information to create rhythm, voice, and surprise? Join us for a free craft talk and reading/Q&A with writer Justin Taylor, author of Reboot, The Gospel of Anarchy, and Riding with the Ghost.

In his craft talk, “The Sentence is a Place to Play,” Justin will invite participants to consider sound, style, and aesthetics as essential tools for creating energy and meaning in prose and poetry alike. Together, we'll look closely at sentences by writers such as Flannery O’Connor, Jhumpa Lahiri, Mitchell S. Jackson, and others, exploring why—and how—each writer built their sentences the way they did. Through close reading, discussion, and experimentation, participants will try fresh approaches to composition and discover what becomes possible when every sentence is an opportunity to generate narrative momentum, develop voice, and deliver readerly pleasure.

Following the talk, Justin will read from Reboot, a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year, now out in paperback.

Justin Taylor is the author of the novels Reboot and The Gospel of Anarchy; the story collections Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever and Flings; and the memoir Riding with the Ghost. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Bookforum, and the Oxford American. He is a contributing writer to The Washington Post Book World and the director of the Sewanee School of Letters. He lives in Portland, Oregon.