T205.
More Interesting than Monsters: Resisting the Urge to Villainize in Memoir
Thursday, March 24, 2022
1:45 pm to 3:00 pm
Vivian Gornick instructs memoirists to capture complexity in the people they write about, even those who cause great conflict or pain. “For the drama to deepen,” she asserts, “we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.” Memoirists on this panel share their experience portraying difficult people on the page and offer techniques for writing about them in rich and multidimensional ways, resisting the urge to villainize while also not pulling any punches.
Participants
Ronit Plank is the author of the memoir When She Comes Back and the short story collection Home Is A Made-Up Place. She is a creative nonfiction editor at the Citron Review and has work in The Atlantic, The Rumpus, The Washington Post, The Iowa Review, The Seattle Times, and Litro. www.ronitplank.com
Lilly Dancyger is the author of Negative Space, a reported and illustrated memoir selected by Carmen Maria Machado as a winner of the 2019 SFWP Literary Awards, and editor of Burn It Down, a critically acclaimed anthology of essays on women's anger. She is an assistant editor at Barrelhouse Books.
Allison Hong Merrill is a Taiwanese immigrant who writes in both Chinese and English. She is the creative nonfiction editor at Dialogue Journal and the author of Ninety-Nine Fire Hoops: A Memoir. Her work has won both national and international awards. Visit her at https://www.allisonhongmerrill.com
Michelle Yang is an advocate who speaks and writes about the intersection of Asian American identity, feminism, and mental health. Born ethnic Chinese in South Korea, Michelle grew up as an immigrant takeout kid. Her memoir, Phoenix Girl: How a Fat Asian with Bipolar Found Love, is in progress.
Michelle Filgate
