F120.
Monsters Keep Us Company: Writing and Publishing Beastly Things
Friday, March 25, 2022
9:00 am to 10:15 am
In Monster of God, science scribe David Quammen writes that monsters “keep us company.” Sea beasts, serial killers, white supremacy, eugenics, xenomorphs—writers obsess over what looms. In this panel, five CNF writers discuss the risks and rewards of confronting monsters. How do we write the ultimate Other when the monster is us? How do we navigate narratives that paint us as monsters? Do we stomp the construct? We offer tips for witnessing, approaching, confronting, and wrangling the fearsome.
Participants
Clinton Crockett Peters, Berry College professor, has authored the books Pandora's Garden and Mountain Madness. His work appears in Best American Essays 2020, Orion, Southern Review, Creative Nonfiction, Hotel Amerika, Catapult, and Fourth Genre. He holds and MFA from the University of Iowa and a PhD from University of North Texas.
L. M. Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas has a creative nonfiction and a literary translation MFA from the University of Iowa. She is the author of Drown Sever Sing and Don’t Come Back from Mad Creek Books. A Rona Jaffe fellow, she works as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.
A. Kendra Greene is the author, illustrator, and audiobook reader of The Museum of Whales You Will Never See. A former Harvard Library Innovation Lab Fellow and Fulbright grantee, she is associate editor at the Southwest Review and has written for the Guardian, Atlas Obscura, and Wall Street Journal.
Sarah Viren is the author of the essay collection MINE, winner of the River Teeth Book Prize and the GLCA New Writers Award. A contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, she is also an assistant professor at Arizona State University.
Michi Trota is a five-time Hugo Award-winning, British Fantasy Award-winning, and Ignyte Award finalist essayist, writer, and editor. She is the first POC editor in chief of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), senior editor of Prism, and the first Filipina Hugo Award winner.
