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Creative Food Writing:
Words You Can Eat
July 23 - August 05
Arrive Friday, July 23, depart Thursday, August 5 (two weeks)

Great fiction, essays, memoir, and poetry have the power to draw us into their worlds. Imagine those same worlds imbued with a culinary life. Think Like Water for Chocolate. And Chocolat. Think Kitchen Confidential. And The Belly of Paris. In this workshop you’ll turn your food imagination and experiences into story with characters, a story arc, scenes, and dialogue. Or transform your food memories into engaging essays and memoir. We’ll make poems out of recipes, and menus into poetry. We’ll keep a journal of our Italian eating experiences and craft the entries into appealing reviews. Plus we’ll discuss what it takes to get published in food magazines—I’ll provide a contact list and guidelines. We’ll also read a cross section of fabulous food literature from the ancient Romans and Greeks to present-day taste-tempting authors. We’ll engage in appetizing writing exercises, and examine and discuss your work—and do a little cooking, too!


Paulette Licitra is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Alimentum—The Literature of Food, the award-winning literary journal of food-related fiction, poetry, and essays. Since 2005 the journal has been featured for notable stories and essays in Best American Essays and the O’Henry Prize Stories. She previously was food editor for the webzine Urban Desires, and food columnist for the Riverdale Press. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Journal of Italian Food, Wine & Travel, Tea, Spectacle, Italian America, Bird Watcher’s Digest, Nevada, and Global City Review, among other publications. She is currently working on a magic realist food novel featuring a Kitchen Mystic and her hapless apprentice. She co-wrote the recipe-poem book PoEatry with writer Esther Cohen. Paulette received her culinary arts diploma from the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, and has studied with home cooks all over Italy, including Emilia Romagna, Lazio, Liguria, the Veneto, and Campania. Paulette conducts writing workshops and cooking classes in New York and Nashville, and taught literary magazine writing & editing at Manhattanville College in Purchase, NY.
  www.alimentumjournal.com