Folks had an amazing time at the first session of our Summer Latinx Writing Community, and now it’s time to shift gears from poetry into genre fiction and beyond in our second workshop at FUSION | The Cell on Monday, July 13, from 3–5 PM. Join us for Trope and Cliché Workshop led by John Hardberger.

Workshop Description

In this workshop, we'll demystify narrative by examining the conventions and tropes that make stories work, the clichés that make readers lose interest, and all the fine lines in between. Through discussion, research, and generative writing exercises, we'll explore how stories are constructed, how reader expectations are both met and subverted, why genres exist, and whether we want to bother with them in the first place.

Workshop Led by John Hardberger

John Hardberger is a Texpat writer, editor, and DJ living in New Mexico. He is an MFA candidate at the University of New Mexico and an alum of the 2025 Clarion Writers Workshop.His fiction straddles the mundane and the weird, exploring the liminal spaces, between identities, cultures and landscapes. His work has appeared in Helicon, Chicago magazine, and Edible New Mexico, and he once held the hotdog beat for the Chicago Tribune.