S167. Tearing Down Societal and Family Myths in Creative Writing

Room 25, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor
Saturday, March 10, 2018
10:30 am to 11:45 am

 

Writers who address family or societal dysfunction have learned the hard way that the more profound the dysfunction, the more violently and determinedly people will fight to protect the myth of normalcy. What writer has not been told, "Don't air the dirty laundry in public"? This panel of memoir and fiction writers will address some of the myths they've confronted in their work, and methods they've used to overcome the wall of resistance they've encountered from both family and society.


Participants

Moderator:

Kaylie Jones’s newest endeavor is the launch of her imprint with Akashic Books. Her novels include A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries and The Anger Meridian; and a memoir, Lies My Mother Never Told Me. She is the chair of the $10,000 yearly James Jones First Novel Fellowship.

Laurie Jean Cannady’s Crave: Sojourn of a Hungry Soul was named one of the best nonfiction books by black authors in 2015 by The Root. A Kirkus review describes Crave as a "bold, honest, and courageous memoir." Foreword Reviews announced Crave as a finalist in the Indiefab 2015 Book of the Year competition.

Sue William Silverman’s books are The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew; Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction; Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You; and Fearless Confessions: A Writer’s Guide to Memoir. She teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

J. Patrick Redmond is a contributing blogger for The Huffington Post. His writing has appeared in the NOH8 Campaign, The Southampton Review, and in the Barnes & Noble Review’s Grin & Tonic. Patrick teaches at the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville. Some Go Hungry is his first novel.

Xu Xi is the author of twelve books, most recently the memoir Elegy for HK and the novel That Man in Our Lives. She has a forthcoming fiction work, Insignificance, and essay collection, This Fish is Fowl. She is cofounder of Authors at Large and currently inhabits the flight path connecting New York and Hong Kong.

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center