S187. No More Dead Bodies on the Page

Room 502 B, LA Convention Center, Meeting Room Level
Saturday, April 2, 2016
12:00 pm to 1:15 pm

Social entropy, the ways in which people and families and entire communities self-destruct, is well represented in American fiction. Dysfunction and violence seem to sell. And yet, much more interesting, and much harder to write well, are narratives about how people connect—what makes community. This panel addresses the challenge of writing stories—without sentimentality—about compassion, love, and the ways in which families of all stripes succeed.

Participants

Moderator:

Lucy Jane Bledsoe is the author of four novels, including The Big Bang Symphony. Her fiction has won a Yaddo fellowship, the Saturday Evening Post Fiction Prize, a California Arts Council Award, an American Library Association Stonewall Award, and two National Science Foundation Writer Fellowships.

Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of Night at the Fiestas, which received a 5 Under 35 award from the National Book Foundation. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, and The O. Henry Prize Stories. She teaches at Warren Wilson and Princeton University.

Lori Ostlund’s story collection The Bigness of the World received the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction and the California Book Award for Debut Fiction. Her second book, a novel, is entitled After the Parade.

Griselda Suárez is a poet and essayist. Her book Concrete River Boulevard was nominated for the California Book Prize. She teaches Chicana/o and Latina/o studies at Long Beach State.

#AWP24

February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City Convention Center

Login

Association of Writers & Writing Programs

S187. No More Dead Bodies on the Page

Participants