What Holds a Book Together? Finding the Spine of Your Project

Location: Rachel Carson Center, fourth floor, Conference Room, Leopoldstr. 11a, 80802 Munich, Germany

Please note that this workshop begins at 12:00 s.t.

Guest Speaker: Francesca Mezzenzana

What holds a book together? This 90-minutes workshop explores book structure through the idea of the spine: the central line of movement that gives a project shape, coherence, and momentum. Rather than treating structure as a purely technical matter of chapters and outlines, the workshop asks how a book finds its internal logic—how its parts connect, build on one another, and keep a reader moving forward.

Aimed at academics working on long-form projects, the session offers practical ways to think about structure beyond the outline: through sequence, rhythm, transition, and stakes. It is particularly useful for those who are beginning to shape a manuscript, rethinking an existing draft, or trying to understand why a project feels fragmented.

Through hands-on exercises and discussion, participants will reflect on the organizing thread of their work and consider what is structurally necessary and what gives a project its sense of direction. By the end of the workshop, they will leave with a clearer sense of what their book is doing and how its parts hold together.

The workshop is limited to 12 people. PhD students are welcome! To register, please send a short paragraph introducing your writing project to francesca.mezzenzana@rcc.lmu.de.

Participants are asked to bring their current book outline, if they have one. Don’t forget to bring paper and a pencil as well!

Francesca Mezzenzana is an anthropologist and writer whose work explores childhood, learning, and human–nonhuman relationships, drawing on long-term research in the Ecuadorian Amazon. She has written for Aeon and Slate, and her work has been featured in public-facing media outlets. Her book Made by the World is forthcoming with Penguin, Allen Lane.