T208.
Reimagining Kansas: Anarchy, Islamic Hope, Family Dysfunction, and Godly Plains
Thursday, February 8, 2024
1:45 pm to 3:00 pm
Join four authors who have written about Kansas in new and imaginative ways, fleshing out the Sunflower State in their own innovative literary strokes. This innovation comes in the form of alternate histories injecting Islamic folklore into the plains and the metanarrative of a could-be Lawrence bomber, the emotionally-nuanced story of an animal-loving family in repair, and the dark tale of a supernaturally-touched farming family in decline.
Participants
Chloe Chun Seim's work has appeared in LitMag, Split Lip Magazine, Free State Review, and others. She earned her MFA from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Her novel, Churn, won the George Garrett Fiction Prize and is due out from Texas Review Press in November 2023. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas.
Farooq Ahmed is the author of the novel Kansastan. He primarily writes about Muslims and the Midwest. His work has been recognized by the South Asian Journalists Association, and he is a recipient of a Caldera Arts Center residency. He graduated from the Columbia University Creative Writing Program.
Becky Mandelbaum is the author of the novel The Bright Side Sanctuary for Animals and the story collection Bad Kansas. She received the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and a High Plains Book Award for First Book. Born and raised in Kansas, she now lives in Bellingham, Washington.
Daniel A. Hoyt's novel This Book Is Not For You won the inaugural Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction. His first story collection, Then We Saw the Flames, won the Juniper Prize for Fiction. Dan teaches at Kansas State University, where he is the founding editor of American Buffalo Books.
