Diving into the Wreck: Excavating Family Histories with Diana Arterian and Douglas Manuel
Date(s): Tuesday, May 1, 2018, 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Location: Piper Writers House, 450 E Tyler Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281
Type(s): Generative Workshop, Lecture, Workshop
Genre and Form(s): Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Hybrid, Memoir, Mixed Genre, Poetry
About the Class
For so many of us the family story is one that defines our young lives and beyond—what we either run from or toward for the decades after leaving home. In this three-hour mixed genre class, we will “dive into the wreck” of family narratives. What events in your family seem to define your life? What relationship with which family member? The narratives we hope to discuss can include those that seem to determine so many people’s young lives: trauma, abuse, neglect. Yet those blessed with stable families have plenty of stories to tell, too—a glorious summer road trip that revealed the loving relationship between siblings, or a reckoning with a parent’s humanity. As guidance for methods of grappling with the family narrative as a resource for creative writing, we will consider poetry, creative nonfiction, and hybrid works of Ai, Anne Carson, Sharon Olds, Ocean Vuong, and others.
Diana and Doug will also be reading on Monday, March 30, 2018 at Valley Bar (130 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85004) at 7 p.m. Click here to learn more about the reading.
