Class Description
*This class is intended for writers who are immigrants.
Writing is an immigrant art. We're constantly crossing borders: between times, between life and death, between one mind and another. And in each new place we survey and surveil, we forage, we gather, repurpose, tinker, build. This is true especially of writers in "hybrid" genres.
This six-week genre-agnostic workshop is for writers who wander the in-between spaces, who migrate from poetry to fiction to non-fiction to drama. It's about finding the immigrant in yourself. Immigrants are at home when we're not at home. We know unknowing. We have learned to unlearn. We carry within us multiple versions of ourselves, multiple histories, whole nations, continents, oceans. We know the art of losing. To be an immigrant is to learn to die many times, to be forced to, out of sheer hunger, to pick and choose the languages, the styles, the genres, to fall into, to fall with.
Each class will begin with a discussion of a genrefluid text, written on the move, written in silence, cunning, and exile. Written as refuge, as imagined homeland, in exhortation and lament. We'll work together to create or refine prompts inspired by those texts. Then we'll workshop work generated from the previous week's discussion.
We will explore dislocation and amnesia through techniques of erasure and constraint. We will practice how and when to move from verse to prose. We will consider writing as surveillance and counter-surveillance. We will practice how to stitch fragments together, how to shore them up against ruin.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. Please visit the Resources tab to access the video-conference link.
Zoom Participation:
Students are not required to turn their camera on, but are encouraged to participate any way they feel comfortable through functions such as the live chat, emoji reactions, and unmuting the microphone. Learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
We ask that instructors enable closed captioning and send a transcript of the session after class. You can also enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting. If your instructor forgets to send the transcript, just send ’em an email!