Piper Writers Studio Presents

The Piper Writer Studio Presents Diana Arterian and Douglas Manuel as visiting faculty from California who will lead this three-hour workshop that incorporates poetry, creative nonfiction, hybrid and experimental writing, and storytelling. All skill levels are welcome to join this workshop with generative exercises. 

Dates and Times: 

Tuesday, May 1 from 5:30 PM to 8:30 PM

Course Description: 

For so many of us the family story is one that defines our young lives and beyond—what we either run from or toward for the decades after leaving home. In this three-hour mixed genre class, we will “dive into the wreck” of family narratives. What events in your family seem to define your life? What relationship with which family member? The narratives we hope to discuss can include those that seem to determine so many people’s young lives: trauma, abuse, neglect. Yet those blessed with stable families have plenty of stories to tell, too—a glorious summer road trip that revealed the loving relationship between siblings, or a reckoning with a parent’s humanity. As guidance for methods of grappling with the family narrative as a resource for creative writing, we will consider poetry, creative nonfiction, and hybrid works of Ai, Anne Carson, Sharon Olds, OceanVuong, and others.