Class Description
Diaries, letters, family trees, photos, items of clothing—many physical artifacts can potentially help illuminate family history. But what about slippery oral stories that change in each telling? Or bare-bones stories infrequently or secretly told? In this workshop, we’ll consider techniques of speculative nonfiction that can illuminate difficult-to-access family stories: how “perhapsing” and writing around black holes can help us dig deeper into the stories and myths we wish to engage with on the page. We will consider examples from Maxine Hong Kingston, Jamaica Kincaid, and others, try out a variety of techniques in speculative nonfiction, and develop a robust list of questions for works-in-progress or ideas for projects.
Anca L. Szilágyi is the author of the novels Daughters of the Air and Dreams Under Glass. Her creative nonfiction has appeared in Orion Magazine, The Fiddlehead, and elsewhere, and has been listed as notable in Best American Essays 2023.
All virtual classes are recorded and made available on a password-protected basis to participants registered in the class. These recordings are available for up to two weeks after the class ends.
Materials List
No Required Materials
Cost and Registration
1 Session, $60 ($54 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.
We now offer our classes at three different price options: Regular ($60), Community Supported ($55), and Sponsor ($65). Following the models of other institutions, we want to ensure that our classes are accessible to a wider audience while continuing to support our instructors. You may choose the price that best fits your situation when registering through Learning Stream.
To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.
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