AWP Panels and Readings With Macondo Members

The Macondo Foundation works with dedicated and compassionate writers who view their work and talents as part of a larger task of community-building and non-violent social change. We are poets, novelists, journalists, performance artists, and creative writers of all genres whose work is socially-engaged. What unites us is a commitment to serve our under-served communities through our writing.
www.macondofoundation.org

 

Thursday- March 1, 2012

12:00 Noon- 1:15 P.M. Lake Ontario, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
Taking Up Residence: Writers in Unexpected Places
(Wendy Call, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, Henry Reese, Ellen Placey Wadey)
Five writers will share their experiences as writers in residence at K-12 schools, visual arts centers, libraries, county hospitals, battered women’s shelters, national parks, and urban community centers nationwide. Each will reflect on what it means to be a writer in a community of nonprofessional writers—and how that community changes both what is written and the writer. Panelists will discuss the practicalities of finding, creating, and making the most of writer-in-residence opportunities.

1:30 P.M.-2:45 P.M.
Wabash Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
Modernist Nonfiction: Virginia Woolf and Her Contemporaries
(Tracy Seeley, Joy Castro, Marcia Aldrich, Jocelyn Bartkevicius)
Did Virginia Woolf create the lyric essay? What else did modernists write that we might think of as creative nonfiction? And what can they teach us about this varied and plastic genre? Join this panel of nonfiction writers as we explore Woolf’s essays, Louise Bogan’s fragmented memoir, Alice Meynell’s personal essays, Margery Latimer’s manifesto/ars poetica, and Meridel LeSueur’s labor movement reportage.


3:00 P.M.-4:15 P.M.
Red Lacquer Room, Palmer House Hilton, 4th Floor
Indigenous Editing/Publishing: Journals, Anthologies, and Presses
(Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, ku‘ualoha ho‘omanawanui, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano, Janet McAdams, Brandy Nālani McDougall)
Indigenous publishing plays a vital role in sovereignty and decolonization movements. Queer and womanist editors of Indigenous Pacific, Native North American, and Indigenous Latin American descent will discuss the production and maintenance of Native journals, anthologies, and presses. Collaboratively producing Native texts, the panel will discuss how they negotiate economic, logistical, and institutional challenges, while keeping center issues of culture, politics, aesthetics, and diversity.


7pm-10pm
"Ancestors: A Queer Writers of Color Reading"
sponsored by the Lambda Literary Foundation
http://www.lambdaliterary.org/

Center on Halsted
3rd Floor
Irving Harris Family Foundation Reception Hall
3656 N. Halsted St. (at Waveland Ave.)
Chicago, IL 60613
(773) 472-6469


7pm Doors Open
7:30pm Reading

Organized by Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán
& Tony Valenzuela

Readers:
OluSeyi OluToyin Adebanjo, Nancy Agabian, Ryka Aoki, Tamiko Beyer, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Ching-In Chen, Matthew R. K. Haynes-Kekahuna, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano, David Keali'i, Emil Keliane, Janet McAdams, Deborah A. Miranda, Claudia Narváez-Meza, vaimoana litia makakaufaki niumeitolu, Emma Pérez, Jai Arun Ravine, Charles Rice-González, James Thomas Stevens, D. Antwan Stewart, Max Wolf Valerio, & Jennifer Lisa Vest.

"Ancestors: A Queer Writers of Color Reading" is a literary reading featuring same-gender-loving, multiple-gender-loving, and transgender poets, non/fiction writers, filmmakers, and performance artists of Indigenous Pacific, Native North American, Arab/Middle Eastern, Asian, Latina/o, and African descent.

This event is sponsored by the Lambda Literary Foundation, which nurtures, celebrates, and preserves lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) literature through programs that honor excellence, promote visibility, and encourage development of emerging writers.

Friday- March 2, 2012

3:00 P.M.-4:15 P.M.
Joliet, Hilton Chicago, 3rd Floor
Bridging the Gaps of Race, Gender, and Culture in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
(Kekla Magoon, René Colato Laínez, Debby Dahl Edwardson, Bridget Birdsall)
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Caucasians will be a minority in the U.S. by the year 2020. The new multiracial face of America is bridging cultural divides on many levels and embracing a brave new world where geeks, freaks, and queers can likewise no longer be hidden in literary closets. As reading rates decline, children’s writers are uniquely poised to promote a literature that better acknowledges who we are becoming. This panel will help writers give voice to the other in a meaningful way.

3:00 P.M.-4:15 P.M.
Grand Ballroom, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
A Reading and Conversation with Luis J. Rodriguez and Dagoberto Gilb, Sponsored by Macondo Writers’ Workshop
(John Phillip Santos, Luis J. Rodriguez, Dagoberto Gilb)
The event will be a reading of selected and new works by two of the most important American writers reflecting on the experiences and story tradition of the Latino community. Both Luis J. Rodriguez and Dagoberto Glib are also involved in innovative initiatives in creative writing education and community efforts committed to positive social change. Question and answer with discussion will follow.

Saturday- March 3, 2012

9:00 A.M.-10:15 A.M.
Crystal Room, Palmer House Hilton, 3rd Floor
Building and Surviving an Innovative Writing Program
(K. Lorraine Graham, John Pluecker, Anna Joy Springer, Jen Hofer, Mark Wallace)
Participating in an interdisciplinary writing program committed to innovative pedagogies is exhilarating and confusing, especially if it’s a new program and you are a professor building the curriculum or a student in the inaugural class. A recent graduate, a current student, two tenured faculty members, and an adjunct professor discuss their experiences with innovative writing programs: the three-year old MFA at UCSD, the established MFA at Cal Arts, and the growing undergraduate BA at CSU San Marcos.

9:00 A.M.-10:15 A.M.
Honoré Ballroom, Palmer House Hilton, Lobby Level
Queer Poets of Color on Craft: The Art of Decolonization
(Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Samiya Bashir, Deborah A. Miranda, Ching-In Chen, Tamiko Beyer)
There is power in craft. Poets use craft to create possibility, ways of seeing, hearing, and moving the world, re-envisioning it. Queer poets of color use multiple techniques to shape language on the page and stage, the way words flicker across glowing screens and beat against the drums of our ears. From the generation and arrangement of text, to shifts in narrativity and delivery, to the use of multiple registers and media, this panel explores the decolonial power of skillful wor(l)d-weaving.

3:00 P.M.-4:15 P.M.
Lake Huron, Hilton Chicago, 8th Floor
Migrant Voices in the Latino Heartland: The Latino Writers Collective’s Migrant Youth Writers Workshop
(Miguel M. Morales, Jose Faus, Gabriela N. Lemmons, Jason Sierra, Linda Rodriguez)
Latino Writers Collective members, including former migrant youth, youth advocates, and students, lead a learning circle on their groundbreaking Migrant Youth Writers workshop, now in its fourth year. Learn how the Latino Writers Collective collaborates with local agencies, colleges and universities in the Midwest. Discover how the workshop helps youth identify and nurture their long silenced voices as migrant youth in the Heartland. Recognize simple ways you can help.

3:00 P.M.-4:15 P.M.
Boulevard Room A,B,C, Hilton Chicago, 2nd Floor
An MFA, huh? What Are You Gonna Do with That?
(Beth Snyder, Sara Hess, Gerald Richards, Bridget Boland Foley, Shin Yu Pai)
What career options exist for a newly minted MFA—besides the obvious paths of more graduate school, adjunct limbo, or literary superstardom? Twelve years later, five alumni of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s MFA in Writing talk about alternative career paths in education, nonprofit, TV, and other spheres—and how their MFA helped them get there.