Ethnicity & Craft: Creating Characters, Not Caricatures

All Levels | In this session we will explore craft issues related to ethnicity. How much do writers—and should writers—think about ethnicity and culture in the writing process? How do these considerations influence the choices we make as we write? We will discuss specific on-the-page concerns: When do you italicize? How do you handle conversations in languages other than English? How much do you explain or introduce cultural elements? And then there is the question of audience and representation. How does a writer negotiate people’s expectations that that writer is representing an entire culture on the page? This session will be part lecture and part discussion.