R188. Writing Away, Writing Toward: Belonging as a Narrative Force in Memoir

B115, Oregon Convention Center, Level 1
Thursday, March 28, 2019
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm

 

Memoirs often explore the territory of belonging, tracing journeys away from and toward communities, families, love affairs, and identities. How do you craft a narrative from the stance of an outsider in motion? And how does writing with a desire for belonging differ, stylistically and structurally, from writing with a desire for differentiation? This panel will examine memoirs of immigration, assimilation, transition, and conversion, and discuss belonging as a pivotal element of memoir.


Participants

Moderator:

Erin O. White received her MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts. She is the author of Given Up For You: A Memoir of Love, Belonging, And Belief.

Sejal Shah's work has appeared in Brevity, Conjunctions, the Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, among others. She writes often about race, gender, silence, and speech. 

Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros is a Tejana poet, freelance writer, and speaker. Her work explores the intersection of faith and Latinidad. She is currently working on a memoir of hybrid essays.

Natalie Singer is the author of California Calling: A Self-Interrogation, a memoir of obsession, emigration, identity, the '80s, and family explosions. She is a longtime journalist and holds an MFA from the University of Washington. She is at work on a second book about her fear of the wilderness.

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