Description
It can be daunting, exhausting to write about the sprawling interconnected events shaping our collective future. How can we capture the feeling of living through these events and the way they reorient our lives and decisions? Moreover, how do we do it while staying focused on what fiction does well: characterizing internal states, interpersonal dynamics, and the lived experience of being on planet Earth?
In this session we’ll examine how writers can tackle topics of crisis, whether political or ecological. We’ll look at works by Lydia Millet and Octavia Butler that convey living in crisis through fable or satire, point of view, and collective narration. And we’ll experiment with these techniques in our own writing to find the best approach for each of our projects.
You’ll leave with a few generative exercises to help you think about how to write about our times.
