Holding Up a Mirror: Writing Contemporary Issues

NOTE: You can still sign up for the remaining classes throughout the duration of the class. This week, the seminar will be pro-rated to $135 (from $380), and you can register now for the next four classes (descriptions below).

Featuring ten instructors teaching classes on ways to write thoughtfully about race, background, class, orientation, and more—of your own perspective and the perspective of others.

A Poetics of Haunting with Jane Wong

This class considers how social, historical, and political contexts “haunt” the work of poets of color. How do history and trauma impact their work across time and space? How does language act as a haunting space of intervention and activism? Through readings and generative prompts, we will engage a poetics of haunting, addressing histories fraught with transformative power. We will read poems from Nathaniel Mackey, Harryette Mullen, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, and Craig Santos Perez. May 23

Writing Across Borders with Wendy Call
As writers, we can open up whole worlds to readers—even if they never leave their living rooms, classrooms, or local libraries. But with new worlds come new borders. In this workshop, we’ll write and talk about the joys and dangers of literary border crossings, braving cross-cultural communication in a complicated world. Through writing exercises, discussion, and an extensive resource list, we’ll explore how words and ideas change meaning as they cross borders, and what this means as we try to write “the truth.” May 30

Writing About Race with Emily Warn

Writing about race is central to many writers’ works. Some African-American writers explore “blackness” in white imaginations as well as exploring their own racist experiences. Some white writers explore “whiteness” in their own imaginations, and racism itself through creating racist and nonwhite characters. Workshop covers differing approaches and resulting controversies. One in-class writing exercise. June 6

Hybrid Identities: Navigating Spaces in Between with Anne Liu Kellor

Who are you? How do you identify? Where do you belong? Through in-class writing and discussion, we will explore our personal identities and the aspects of ourselves that are not easy to categorize as either/or, but rather as neither or both. June 13