This innovative writing workshop, led by multi-award-winning novelist and leading writing instructor Michael Marano (www.GetOffMyLawn.biz ), will explore the relationship between character development and the creation of a setting, be it for a novel, short story, screenplay or stage play.

Participants will be shown clips from films ranging from Pixar's Wall-E to the hard-boiled Paul Newman detective movie Harper and given a selection of readings that will help them develop a writer's toolkit for creating an interplay of character development and world-building. There will also be in-class brainstorming and collaborative exercises. The kernel of the skills we'll be building upon comes from what archaeologists have done for generations: recreating portraits of how people live through physical objects and their surroundings. As writers, we'll be doing archeology without digging, using words instead of shovels.

For more information, contact Jane at jphilbrick@somervillema.gov.