The Writing University's Eleventh Hour podcast features recordings of illuminating craft talks from the renown writers, novelists, poets, essayists who present at the Eleventh Hour Lecture Series during the University of Iowa's Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
We periodically release a tailored craft talk from the series, focusing on a wide range of topics such as Transforming Life into Writing, Humor Writing, The Music of Language and many more.
Episode #124: Notan: How Visual Art Informs Writing
In this episode, Notan: How Visual Art Informs Writing, artist and writer Sandra Scofield discusses using artistic techniques in your writing. As a painter, Scofield is constantly recognizing ideas about composition in art that speak directly to what she does as a writer. One concept that is especially useful is Notan, a Japanese term that means "light-dark balance." We can also think of positive and negative space, or symmetry and asymmetry--all ideas about shapes and patterns that are the foundation of composition. Consider the ways that you, too, can utilize this ancient mindset to heighten the quality of composition in your work.
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This talk was originally given on Thursday, July 16, 2019 in the Phillips Auditorium on the University of Iowa campus.