The Desert Nights, Rising Stars
Writers Conference

Home / Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writers Conference / Schedule / 2019 / Conference Schedule Saturday, February 23, 2019 / Did That Really Happen?: Writing Characters with Kirstin Chen

Conference Schedule 2019

Conference Schedule 2019

Saturday, February 23, 2019, 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Did That Really Happen?: Writing Characters So Real, They Walk Right off the Page with Kirstin Chen

Date(s): Saturday, February 23, 2019, 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Location: Traditions, University Club (view map)
Type(s): Presentation, Workshop
Genre and Form(s): Fiction, Mixed Genre
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Meet our Faculty

About the Session

This session explores how writers can strategically use details from their lives to craft vivid fictional characters and to tell resonant stories. Beginning—and even more experienced—writers sometimes feel the need to hide that parts of their fiction are rooted in reality. But the use of autobiography is a fictional strategy like any other, such as choosing a particular point-of-view or a particular structure. No matter what strategies one employs, the goal is always the same: to tell a good story.

Meet the Presenter(s)

Desert Nights Rising Stars Writers Conference Faculty 2019 Kirsten Chen


Kirstin Chen

Kirstin Chen's new novel, Bury What We Cannot Take (Little A, March 2018), has been named a Most Anticipated Upcoming Book by Electric Literature, The Millions, The Rumpus, Harper’s Bazaar, and InStyle, among others. She is also the author of Soy Sauce for Beginners. She was the fall 2017 NTU-NAC National Writer in Residence in Singapore, and has received awards from the Steinbeck Fellows Program, Sewanee, Hedgebrook, and the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference. Born and raised in Singapore, she currently resides in San Francisco.


Learn more about Kirstin Chen