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Writing Your Identity - Six Weeks of Summer Writing
(Oak Park, just outside Chicago)
Each and every one of us possess complex identities, which include such elements as race, age, ethnicity, gender, orientation, religion, class, national, political orientation and much more. In this summer workshop, you'll be encouraged to write your identities through the lens of fiction and/or creative nonfiction. (All prose genres are welcome.) We'll aim to create powerful stories with rich and compelling characters, while also exploring the basic elements of fiction/non-fiction writing: plot, dialogue, point of view, setting, structure, and more.
All levels of writers (including beginners) are welcome. The workshop will meet in person in Oak Park at Eastgate Cafe (Harrison & Lyman), in two three-week sessions; you may register for either session, or for both. Class size is limited to ten students per session. During session one, we'll do focused exercises on character, setting, voice, and pov. In session two, we'll critique a completed short story from each member, as well as discussing plot, structure and theme.
Workshop dates: Mondays, July 12-26 (session 1, $75); August 2-16 (session 2, $75), 7:00 - 9:00 p.m.
More details here: http://www.mamohanraj.com/classes.html
Instructor bio: Mary Anne Mohanraj is the author / editor of ten books, including _Bodies in Motion_ (HarperCollins 2005), which was a finalist for the Asian American Book Awards, selected for Truman College's _One Book, One Truman_ program, and which has been translated into six languages. She's a professor of English literature and creative writing at UIC, and has also taught creative writing at Northwestern University, Roosevelt University, the University of Utah, and Mills College. She holds a MFA and a Ph.D. in creative writing, and received an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for her fiction.