Writing with Heart: When Love is Your Muse with Gabby Rivera |
10/19/2019 |
10:00 am - 11:30 am |
Phoenix |
Course Description and Details |
Writing with Heart: When Love is Your Muse with Gabby Rivera
Course Description:
This generative workshop is designed to engage writers with the core of their ideas, the true source of their passion—their heart. Gabby Rivera found looking to love as her muse to be transformative: learning to capture that wonder and imagination, and distill it to the truth of what she was writing. How does love—for family, for community, for yourself—inform your work? How does drawing inspiration from love imbue the written word with a different kind of power and meaning? Gabby explores the myriad of ways having love as your muse can radically change your words—and your world.
Dates and Times:
Saturday, October 19, 2019
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM
Location:
Burton Barr Library
Pulliam Auditorium
1221 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85004
(602) 262-4636
Duration:
1.5 Hours
Genre Type:
Social Justice, Fiction, Hybrid, Essay, Writers on Writing,
Course Type:
Generative Workshop/Lecture/Conversation
Course Level
All Skill Levels Welcome
Faculty Bio:
Gabby Rivera is an
outgoing, outspoken creator invested in fostering better dialogue, inspiring
radical creativity, and improving our most vulnerable communities. The author
of Juliet Takes a Breath, she’s also
the writer of the new Marvel series America—featuring
the first queer, Latinx teen-girl superhero, ever—that’s catching headlines
from The New York Times, CNN, Vogue,
and beyond. Gabby Rivera is a young, charming speaker dedicated to empowering
women and improving our marginalized communities. She’s currently making major
waves for her new Marvel series starring America Chavez: a queer, Latinx
superhero who’s been written and designed, crucially, by a queer Latinx. And
while the series is “definitely going to tackle America’s ancestry
and ethnicity,” Rivera tells The
Washington Post, it’s also a comic book aimed at wide appeal: committed to
snappy one-liners, blowing stuff up, and beating up the bad guys, naturally.
Rivera is also the author of Juliet Takes
a Breath, a YA novel listed by Mic as
one of the 25 essential books to read for women’s history month. It’s a
critically acclaimed coming-of-age story starring a queer puertorriqueña who
leaves her native Bronx behind to intern, over one transformative summer, with
one of her literary heroes: the feminist author Harlow Brisbane. “I strongly
encourage you to read Juliet Takes a Breath,” writes Roxane Gay. “It’s quite
dazzling, funny as hell, poignant, all the things.” Witty, authentic, and
humming with the full complexities of modern life and radical politics, the
book was called the “dopest LGBTQA YA book ever” by Latina magazine. As an activist, Rivera also gives back. She’s the
Youth Programs Manager at GLSEN (pronounced “glisten”): a leading national
education organization focused on ensuring safe and affirming schools for LGBTQ
students. That means fewer incidents of bullying and harassment, and more
students treated with respect. She’s also worked with
Autostraddle.com for over five years as the QTPOC Speakeasy editor and A-Camp
staff. As a film and multi-media teaching artist, she’s worked with social
justice organizations like DreamYard Project, Inc. And she’s appeared as a
featured panelist and counselor at the annual Autostraddle Queer Women’s
Conference, and has presented at the Allied Media and Digital Media and
Learning Conferences.
Free Author Reading:
Friday, October 18 2019
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
Burton Barr Library