WEST VIRGINIA (WVDN) – Wuthering Heights, Harry Potter’s Hogwarts, New York City—setting can take on a life of its own in both fiction and nonfiction. Join Belinda Anderson for her new writing workshop, “Setting as Character,” offered through New River Community and Technical College starting Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025.
This three-week workshop, presented via a convenient conference call format, focuses on crafting and describing settings that act as dynamic characters, influencing the actions and emotions of the people within the story. The workshop is tailored for both new writers and those already engaged in writing projects, offering practical tools and techniques to develop atmospheric, influential settings across genres.
“A fully-developed setting can really draw in readers,” Anderson said. “Wuthering Heights is an enduring classic because it delivers more than a well-described setting. The manor house and the harsh moors impose isolation on the human characters. That’s the power of setting as character.” Anderson noted that locales can be significant characters, too, giving as an example Homer H. Hickam Jr.’s hometown in his best-selling memoir Rocket Boys.
This audio-only workshop, which includes time for questions and discussion, can be accessed by telephone, including landlines, or via Zoom. Participants can join via an audio-only conference call using either an internet connection or a landline telephone — no high-speed internet is required. Participants will be emailed the conference call number and access codes after registering for the class. Classes will meet at 10 a.m. on Thursdays over a three-week period. Each hour-long session includes a lecture, time for participant questions and sharing, and follow-up group emails.
Setting is an important element in Anderson’s own writing, including a department store that is not exactly what it seems in her middle-grade novel, Jackson Vs. Witchy Wanda. The State Fair of West Virginia appears frequently in her short-story collections, influencing the human characters and the plots. “With warmth and charm, Belinda Anderson creates a world that lingers long after the last page,” author Gretchen Moran Laskas wrote in a review.
Tuition for Setting as Character Workshop is $95, and the registration deadline is Feb. 7. Participants will receive the conference call number and access codes upon registration.
Learn more about Anderson and her work online at BelindaAnderson.com.
New River CTC’s Workforce Education Division offers community education classes, workforce development programs, and customized training designed to meet the educational needs of southeastern West Virginia.
For information on upcoming classes or to register for the course, visit www.newriver.edu/
Call: 304-793- 6101 or email: gkincaid@newriver.edu
