Apr 13 • Killing Him Softly with My Short Story by Linda Kay Hardie
April 13 @ 10:00 am - April 27 @ 12:00 pm
Killing Him Softly with My Short Story by Linda Kay Hardie
Sunday Mornings – April 13, 20, 27, 2026
10:00am to 12:00pm
Sierra Arts Academy Training Studio – 1995 Dickerson Rd, Reno
Registration Fee: $75
SAF Membership Registration Discount: $65
Registration Link: Killing Him Softly with My Short Story
Everyone loves to write novels—or at least, to have written one (it’s hard work!). As readers and writers, we enjoy exploring characters, motivations, stakes, tension, and conflict. A novel allows space to deeply examine the human condition, but in today’s busy world, short stories are often a better fit for both reading and writing.
How do you pare down a 50,000-word saga into a complete, satisfying narrative of 3,000 words or less? Writing short stories is an art: it takes skill to unfold a full story in 20 or so pages. The good news is that it’s also a craft that can be learned.
Linda Kay Hardie taught herself to write concisely and powerfully without sacrificing depth or satisfaction. Now she wants to share those techniques with you. The author of dozens of published short stories, nonfiction essays, and poems, Linda Kay offers insight into what short stories are designed to do—and how to achieve that purpose.
Her workshop, Killing Him Softly With My Short Story, includes hands-on writing exercises, prompts, and practical tips to help you focus big ideas into short forms. Come prepared with writing materials (tablet, notebook, pen—whatever you prefer) and your ideas.
Linda Kay Hardie writes crime, horror, and fantasy stories that have been published in many anthologies. She writes in many genres, but not romance. She tried once, and everyone ended up dead. Tragic. When not writing adult short stories, she writes stories and books for children, ages 2 to 12.
Linda’s first writing award was in fifth grade, when she won a first place trophy for an essay on fire safety. In 2022, she was honored with the Sierra Arts Foundation Literary Arts Award for fiction.
Linda is a member of Short Mystery Fiction Writers, Horror Writers Association, Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, and Cat Writers’ Association. She has a master’s in English from the University of Nevada, Reno, where she makes a living as a freelance writer and as staff working for Abyssinian cats.
