PJ Seminar: The Fictional Is Political: A Master Class On Writing Real Worlds with Asali Solomon
Schedule
Mon Jun 21 2021 at 07:00 pm
Location
StoryStudio Chicago | Chicago, IL
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According to the great author and philosopher Grace Paley, “the slightest story ought to contain the facts of money and blood in order to be interesting to adults.” Going further, I would argue that though some writers embrace political themes and others try to run screaming, there is no literature without blood and money, e.g. without politics.Our characters inhabit bodies, histories, nations and red-lined neighborhoods; how they live and when they die issues from who they are. Whether a writer is steeped in realism or creating worlds, if she writes about relationships between humans, trees or real estate developers, then that writing is political.
In this virtual event, we'll talk through examples from writers such as Mary Gaitskill, NK Jemisin, Jenny Zhang, Flannery O’Connor and Gwendolyn Brooks. This workshop seeks to give each participant the tools create their own individual framework for approaching the realms of the political, as a part of an overall richer process for writing the fiction of your dreams.
About the Instructor:
Asali Solomon is the author of The Days of Afrekete, a novel forthcoming from Farrar, Straus & Giroux in October. Her novel Disgruntled was cited as one of the best books of 2015 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Denver Post; the short stories in her first book, Get Down earned her a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award and the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honor. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney's, Kenyon Review, O: The Oprah Magazine, Vibe, Essence, the Paris Review Daily, and in the anthology How We Fight White Supremacy: A Field Guide to Black Resistance. Solomon teaches fiction writing and African American and Caribbean Literature at Haverford College.
Class fee: $65.00
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Where is it happening?
StoryStudio Chicago, 4043 N Ravenswood Ave, Chicago, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
