2023 KWELI INTERNATIONAL LITERARY FESTIVAL
VIRTUAL MASTER CLASSES, CRAFT TALKS, AND WORKSHOPS
Scroll down to register (class links in PROGRAM SCHEDULE).
Click any image to learn more about the authors.
The master classes, craft talks, and workshops are exclusively for BIPOC writers.
SCHEDULE AT A GLANCE
July 16, 2023 | Writing Lyrical Fiction, Fatimah Asghar
July 22, 2023 | Where You At: Writing as Space-Making, Mikael Awake
July 22, 2023 | Death to “The Reader”: Thoughts on Audience, POV, and the White Gaze, Rita Chang-Eppig
July 25 - August 29, 2023 | The Art of the Short Story Workshop, Laura Pegram
July 29, 2023 | Writing a Complicated Villain, Megan Kakimoto
August 5, 2023 | Sizzling Scenes, Compelling Characters, David Heska Wanbli Weiden
August 12, 2023 | Courageous Revision, Kirstin Valdez Quade
August 19, 2023 | Visual Storytelling: A Path to Keeping Your Story Moving Through Its Own Space, Ramona Emerson
August 26, 2023 | Shape & Form: New Entry Points for Crafting Short Fiction, Tracey Rose Peyton
September 6, 2023 | Approaches to Plot, Megha Majumdar
September 13, 2023 | Revision and Recognition, Isabella Hammad
Writing Lyrical Fiction (Craft Talk)
Led by Fatimah Asghar
Sunday, July 16, 2023, 1:30pm - 2:30pm EST
$50
This craft talk will be about incorporating different genres into fiction and what it means to create hybrid writing.
This craft talk is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
Where You At: Writing as Space-Making (Master Class)
Led by Mikael Awake
Saturday, July 22, 2023; 9:00am - 12:00pm EST
$100
How to write about a place? Colonialism renames and recategorizes land, imposes shape upon the land, coopts indigenous nexuses of spiritual power, diverts rivers which eventually return (or “flood”) back to precolonial locations. As Toni Morrison reminds us in her essay “The Site of Memory,” “All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that.” This master class will offer students an opportunity to think about the dynamic connection between nonfiction storytelling and place. How do writers create a sense of place? More conceptually, what kind of space can the story itself create through language? What might it mean to approach writing as the creation of spaces? We will read and discuss brief excerpts of nonfiction pieces and conduct an exercise with our works in progress. Students will be encouraged to define their understanding of place and to consider how the places they write about are created, maintained, erased, remade, by people, by language, by story — and vice versa. The first half of this master class will focus on space as a layered concept within our works-in-progress, while the second half will consider the literary spaces created by finished works, including reading, publication, and gatherings.
This master class is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
This course will take place online via Zoom. Participants will receive instructions for access prior to the start of class.
Death to “The Reader”: Thoughts on Audience, POV, and the White Gaze (Craft Talk)
Led by Rita Chang-Eppig
Saturday, July 22, 2023; 2:00pm - 3:30pm EST
$50
In his wonderful book Craft in the Real World, Matthew Salesses writes, "You can't control who reads your fiction, but you can control whom you write for." Unfortunately, it's not always easy to figure out who your audience is and what assumptions they bring (or don't bring) to their reading. For whom do we write? How do we balance writing for our intended audience vs. writing for mainstream appeal? Is there ever a good reason to write for the White Gaze? In this craft talk, we'll consider the complexities around these questions and perhaps arrive at some tentative answers.
This craft talk is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
This course will take place online via Zoom. Participants will receive instructions for access prior to the start of class.
The Art of the Short Story (Multi-Session Workshop) Led by Laura Pegram
Tuesday, July 25 - Tuesday, August 29; 6:30pm - 8:30pm EST
$325
This multi-session workshop is “part literature appreciation class, part boot camp with a gentle, loving touch.” We’ll examine several examples of the short story form by writers from Edwidge Danticat to Louise Erdrich, and discuss how the authors use imagery, the art of compression AND MORE. The workshop will include seminars focused on craft and in-class writing exercises. Peer review sessions will take place during the last three weeks of workshop.
This workshop is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
This course will take place online via Zoom. Participants will receive instructions for access prior to the start of class.
Writing a Complicated Villain Led by Megan Kakimoto (Master Class)
Saturday, July 29, 2023; 1:30pm - 4:30pm EST
$100
We all like to believe ourselves inherently good. Yet characters contain multitudes—even those dubbed as villains. Writing a human villain draws both empathy and anger from our readers, and we must get comfortable with a little productive discomfort if we are to create a believable villain. In this class, we will learn several tools to create productive discomfort, as well as how best to approach morality in fiction. We will study the ways that works of fiction have portrayed the systems that fail both victim and perpetrator of violence, and we will bring these lessons to our own complicated villains through various writing exercises. Throughout the class, we will be working to allow empathy to guide our authorial decisions, especially in respect to our human villains.
This master class is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
This course will take place online via Zoom. Participants will receive instructions for access prior to the start of class.
Sizzling Scenes, Compelling Characters
Led by David Heska Wanbli Weiden (Master Class)
Saturday, August 5, 2023; 2:00pm - 5:00pm EST
$100
In this fiction seminar, we’ll examine and analyze techniques for writing compelling scenes and creating strong characters. We’ll look at scene openings and endings, tension and suspense, and using interiority. We’ll also discuss creating compelling protagonists and antagonists, and ways to bring your characters to life. We’ll consider examples from various writers, and, time permitting, conclude with a writing exercise, followed by a dialogue and discussion.
This workshop is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
This course will take place online via Zoom. Participants will receive instructions for access prior to the start of class.
Courageous Revision (Master Class)
Led by Kirstin Valdez Quade
Saturday, August 12, 2023; 1:30pm - 4:30pm EST
$100
In his last novel, Crossing to Safety, Wallace Stegner wrote, “Hard writing makes easy reading.” And nowhere is this more apparent than in the revision process. Revision is not the final step of a long process; rather, it is usually the bulk of the process. It requires patience, distance, flexibility, and above all, courage. In this class, we will discuss revision strategies.
This master class is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
This course will take place online via Zoom. Participants will receive instructions for access prior to the start of class.
Visual Storytelling: A Path to Keeping Your Story Moving Through Its Own Space (Craft Talk)
Led by Ramona Emerson
Saturday, August 19, 2023; 2:00pm - 3:30pm EST
$50
This craft lecture explores some tips and suggestions on how to become a more visual storyteller and how to maintain movement within your story. I will be sharing some elements of craft and helping writers to harness memories and moments for their novel.
This craft talk is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
This course will take place online via Zoom. Participants will receive instructions for access prior to the start of class.
Shape & Form: New Entry Points for Crafting Short Fiction (Master Class)
Led by Tracey Rose Peyton
Saturday, August 26, 2023; 1:30pm - 4:30pm EST
$100
This master class will explore the ways fiction writers can use existing shapes and forms to help generate new works. We’ll take a look at a range of literary materials that borrow from various frameworks, such as indexes, logs, essay questions, glossaries, etc.
This master class is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
This course will take place online via Zoom. Participants will receive instructions for access prior to the start of class.
Approaches to Plot
Led by Megha Majumdar (Craft Talk)
Wednesday, September 6, 2023; 12:00pm - 1:00pm EST
$50
What is plot, and how can we plot our fiction to invite our reader in? In this craft class, we will discuss several approaches to plot, with accompanying writing exercises, followed by time for Q&A.
This craft talk is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
Revision and Recognition
Led by Isabella Hammad (Craft Talk)
Wednesday, September 13, 2023; 7:00pm - 8:30pm EST
$50
Revising prose fiction depends on defamiliarization—seeing the work afresh—as well as recognizing and refining elements and threads that have emerged unconsciously in the first draft. Alongside practical advice for redrafting prose, I’ll suggest some ways that the novel's inheritance from the tradition of Greek tragedy might guide us through this process.
This craft talk is exclusively for BIPOC writers.
Please click here first to complete a required form, then submit your payment below.
