S134.

Writing Our Whole Selves: Mixed Writers Challenge the Narrow Literary Landscape

111AB, Pennsylvania Convention Center, 100 Level
Saturday, March 26, 2022
10:35 am to 11:50 am

 

In a society that favors the unambiguous over the complex, how do mixed authors of color write the truth of ourselves? Do we depict the ambiguity of our backgrounds or default to the recognizable and marketable? Do we reframe the issue by writing nonhuman characters? How do we embrace our in-betweenness and how do we influence structural change to reflect the nuances of the mixed experience? Five writers discuss how their work fits in the literary landscape now and in a more inclusive future.



Outline & Supplemental Documents

Event Outline: Outline-WritingOurWholeSelvesREV.pdf

Participants

Moderator:

Donna Miscolta is the author of three books of fiction. Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories (2020) is her latest. Her work reflects her Filipino and Mexican heritage. Recent essays appear in Poetry Northwest and The Museum of Americana. She recently retired as a project manager in local government.

Jeni McFarland holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Houston and is a 2016 Kimbilio Fellow. Her debut novel, The House of Deep Water, is out now.

Talia Lakshmi Kolluri is a mixed South Asian American writer living in California's Central Valley. Her short fiction has been published in the Minnesota Review, Ecotone, Southern Humanities Review, and the Common. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories and a novel.

Aliah Lavonne Tigh is the author of Weren’t We Natural Swimmers, a forthcoming 2022 chapbook with Tram Editions. Her poems have appeared in Guernica, The Texas Review, Matter Monthly, and The Rupture.

Dawn Pichon Barron lives and works at the south end of the Salish Sea. She is the director of the Native Pathways Program at the Evergreen State College and Creative Writing Indigenous Studies faculty. Her chapbook, Escape Girl Blues, is out in the world.

#AWP24

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Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center