F215.
Writing the Wound: How to Write Trauma Ethically
Friday, March 25, 2022
1:45 pm to 2:45 pm
Our wounds are the openings to our deepest selves. The craving for connection in these soft and tender places and the instinct to seek out witnesses to our scars are universal. But how can we ensure we are writing toward healing, rather than retraumatization? And how do we write ethically about those who have hurt us? Panelists working in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and graphic storytelling will discuss their personal experiences and best practice principals for writing trauma ethically.
Participants
Aubrey Hirsch is the author of Why We Never Talk About Sugar. Her stories, essays, and comics have appeared in American Short Fiction, the New York Times, Vox, the Nib, Black Warrior Review, the Florida Review, Gay Magazine, and elsewhere.
Roxane Gay is the author of An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, Difficult Women, and Hunger. She has work in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Oxford American, Virginia Quarterly Review, and others. She is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times.
Sumita Chakraborty is a poet, essayist, and scholar. She is Helen Zell Visiting Professor in Poetry at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, and she is the author of the poetry collection Arrow, published in the US by Alice James Books and in the UK by Carcanet Press in 2020.
Saeed Jones is the author of the memoir How We Fight for Our Lives, winner of the 2019 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction. He is also the author of the poetry collection Prelude to Bruise, a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award.
Maggie Smith is the author of five books, including Goldenrod, Good Bones, and the national bestseller Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. Her poems and essays have appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the New York Times, Tin House, and The Best American Poetry.
