T226.

Reproductive Writes: Writing About Reproductive Choice, Loss, and Justice

Room 2105, Kansas City Convention Center, Street Level
Thursday, February 8, 2024
3:20 pm to 4:35 pm

 

How do writers use poetry and nonfiction to explore reproductive choice, health, and loss? What are the unique challenges and risks raised in the act of writing about reproductive topics, including infertility, miscarriage, and abortion? How does the stigma of discussing the intimate emotional and bodily aspects of reproduction carry over to the page? How do these issues change across genre? Writers with a range of experiences and backgrounds will read from their work and engage these issues.



Outline & Supplemental Documents

Event Outline: awp_outline_2024.pdf

Participants

Moderator:

Maria Novotny is an assistant professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She writes about reproductive advocacy, in particular infertility and recurrent reproductive loss. Her coedited collection Infertilities, A Curation portrays experiences of infertility in art and writing.

Jacqui Morton's work has appeared in places such as the Guardian, The Rumpus, and Salon. She has published a chapbook of poems, Turning Cozy Dark, and is a graduate of the MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. She teaches in a community education program and is a consultant to nonprofits.

Erika Meitner is the author of six books of poems, including Useful Junk (BOA Editions in 2022), and Holy Moly Carry Me, which won the 2018 National Jewish Book Award and was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award. She is an English professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Carla Sameth, MFA in creative writing (Lat Am) Queens University, Altadena Poet Laureate, a PEN Teaching Artist, teaches at the LA Writing Project and SNHU. She published the memoir One Day on the Gold Line and writes about pregnancy loss, nontrad parenting, identity, addiction, and LGBTQ+ issues.

Robin Silbergleid is a poet and nonfiction writer. Her books include The Baby Book: Poems and the memoir Texas Girl. Her coedited anthology Infertilities, A Curation is forthcoming from Wayne State University Press in 2023. She is professor of English at Michigan State University.

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center