T241.
Brutal or Traumatic Scenes in Creative Nonfiction: Is There a Veil?
Thursday, March 24, 2022
3:20 pm to 4:20 pm
Most of the time, creative nonfiction books deal with something traumatic or brutal. As writers, how mindful are we in recreating these scenes on the page? When we engage with topics like physical, mental, or sexual abuse, rape, self-harm, debilitating illness, and deaths of our loved ones, how intentional are we when narrating readers through these moments? Do we create a veil to protect our readers or draw the readers right in as though they’re experiencing these things themselves?
Participants
Lara Lillibridge (she/zher) is the author of Mama, Mama, Only Mama and Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home and coeditor of the anthology Feminine Rising. The interviews editor for Hippocampus Magazine, she holds an MFA from West Virginia Wesleyan College, and she is a mentor for Writer to Writer.
Krystal Sital is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Secrets We Kept. A PEN Award finalist, her essays have been anthologized in A Map Is Only One Story and Fury: Women’s Lived Experiences of the Trump Era. Her work can also be found in Elle, the New York Times, and Catapult.
Athena Dixon, a native of northeast Ohio, is the author of The Incredible Shrinking Woman and No God in This Room. Her work also appears in The BreakBeat Poets Vol. 2: Black Girl Magic (Haymarket Books). Learn more at www.athenadixon.com.
Carol Smith is an award-winning journalist and editor for NPR affiliate KUOW Public Radio in Seattle. Her essays and other writings have appeared in more than a dozen literary journals. Her memoir, Crossing the River: Seven Stories that Saved My Life, A Memoir, came out in May 2021.
Christine Hyung-Oak Lee is the author of the memoir Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, ZYZZYVA, Guernica, the Rumpus, Hyphen Magazine, and BuzzFeed.
