S207. Writing Against Assumptions: On Crafting Diverse Narrators

Portland Ballroom 251, Oregon Convention Center, Level 2
Saturday, March 30, 2019
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm

 

Though recent efforts have resulted in a slightly more diverse landscape, the traditional literary canon remains overwhelmingly white, male, straight, and nondisabled. A panel of women, LGBT writers, disabled writers, and writers of color discuss how they push back against reader assumptions to craft narrators with diverse backgrounds, while not catering to normative assumptions about identity. Panelists work in multiple genres including creative nonfiction, poetry, and fiction.


Participants

Moderator:

Cade Leebron is a writer living in Columbus, Ohio. She holds an MFA from Ohio State. Her work has appeared in Brevity, American Literary Review, Electric Literature, and elsewhere.

Jillian Weise is the author of The Amputee's Guide to Sex, The Colony, and The Book of Goodbyes. Recent work appears in Boston Review, Poetry, and the New York Times. She teaches at Clemson University.

Laura Espósto is a current MFA candidate at the University of Arizona. Her work has appeared in journals such as Rattle, Word Riot, Tinderbox, and Reservoir.

Chet'la Sebree is the author of the forthcoming collection Mistress. The 2014–2016 Stadler Fellow at the Stadler Center for Poetry, she has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and Vermont Studio Center. She is a graduate of American University's MFA program.

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center