Two-Day Intensive: Defining the Indefinable—Learning Description from Samantha Harvey's Orbital

Samantha Harvey was awarded the 2024 Booker Prize for her novel Orbital, which follows six astronauts aboard a space station circling our planet for twenty-four hours. Orbital is an eloquent meditation about the complex relationships between humanity, Earth, and their joined legacy. It’s Harvey’s richly layered and undeniably sublime prose that rockets her novel into the stratosphere of masterful description writing. In this intensive, we’ll read, discuss, and model various strategies Harvey employs to great reward. Together, we’ll elevate our own prose stylings and learn how to depict the most ineffable parts of the world around us.