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Switchyard Tulsa: “Researching Into the Voice: The Great Believers and Approaching History As An Outsider”

Switchyard Festival Tulsa, OK

May 30th, 5pm @ Promenade Ballroom

Included in the Ideas Track & Full Festival Pass

Rebecca Makkai, “Researching into the Voice: The Great Believers and Approaching History as an Outsider” 

Sponsored by TU’s Department of English and Creative Writing

6 days of music, literature and ideas

Switchyard is a national festival of art and intellect featuring 40 keynote speakers and local and national performance artists – based in the heart of Downtown Tulsa.

Switchyard will invite people to cross the tracks that once divided this city to explore our complicated histories, seek new points of connection and activate the transformative power of art. In this inaugural year, we’ll focus on attempts to ban, censor or suppress challenging ideas—new and old. This will mean digging into the past, imagining alternative identities and dreaming of rich new futures.



on May 30 2023· Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Muse & The Marketplace:”Why Do We Do This?” Keynote Panel

 

“Why Do We Do This? Finding the Writerly Purposes that Make Publishing Worth It” Muse Keynote Panel
7am PT/9am CT/10am ET (Virtual)

In the face of all the difficulties authors encounter as we attempt to navigate the world of publishing, why do we continue to labor for years over our stories and the business of launching them into the world? Come hear how our panel of highly accomplished authors — Victor LaValle, Rebecca Makkai, and Maggie Shipstead — think about questions of writerly purpose in their own projects and careers, and discover what keeps them motivated and artistically engaged despite challenges they’ve encountered in their own publishing journeys.

Speakers: 
Victor LaValle (He/Him)Keynote Panelist

Rebecca Makkai (She/Her)Keynote Panelist

Maggie Shipstead (She/Her)Keynote Panelist

on May 21 2023· Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Northwestern Summer Writers’ Conference: The Origins of The Original

The Northwestern University Summer Writers’ Conference is back! This year, the conference is entirely online again so you can join us from anywhere in the world. Details are forthcoming. In the meantime, please save the dates!

The conference is hosted by the Northwestern University School of Professional Studies MA in Writing and  MFA in Prose and Poetry programs.

July 9th, 2022 11:00am – noon CST
The Origins of the Original
Featuring Rebecca Makkai

For writing to succeed, it must be both well-executed and original. But when we sit down to write, the first words, scenes, characters, conflicts, and settings we come up with are often the least original ones of which we’re capable. Digging past the obvious, the stock (and even the products of the collective unconscious), we might finally arrive at stories that are strikingly new and memorable. In this class we’ll cover some key elements of originality — specificity, idiosyncrasy, complexity, repetition, and change — and talk about accessing them in both drafting and revision. While originality might seem intuitive, or even a product of the writer’s personality, it’s in fact a skill that can be sharpened. That’s what we’ll be doing.

on July 9 2022· Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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