R203. Innovative Contemporary Fiction: New Paths for the Novel and Story

Room 217D, Henry B. González Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Thursday, March 5, 2020
12:10 pm to 1:25 pm

 

In her influential essay “Two Paths for the Novel" a decade ago, Zadie Smith wrote that the avant-garde novel had languished while lyrical realism had become the dominant path, “most other exits blocked.” But recently, both the novel and story have undergone a renovation; new directions abound. At the same time, fiction increasingly represents diverse experiences. Five writers will discuss recent innovative fiction and forms of experimentation, along with what such innovations make possible.


Participants

Moderator:

Cara Blue Adams’s fiction appears in Granta, American Short Fiction, Kenyon Review, and Epoch. A 2018-19 Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow, she has been awarded the Kenyon Review Short Fiction Prize and the Missouri Review Peden Prize. She is an assistant professor at Seton Hall University.

Manuel Gonzales is the author of the collection The Miniature Wife and Other Stories and the novel The Regional Office is Under Attack! He teaches literature at Bennington College and is a full-time faculty member at the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Alexandra Kleeman is the author of You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, Intimations, and a forthcoming novel. Her work has been published in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, n+1, Zoetrope, Tin House, and Conjunctions. She is an assistant professor at the New School's MFA program.

Marie-Helene Bertino

Rita Bullwinkel

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center