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Inprint Intensive Workshops, Writers Workshops,

Writing About Family 2023-208/In-Person

Course #2023-208
Saturday June 3 1:00 pm–4:00 pm Sunday, June 4, 1-4 pm
Cost: $140 Instructor: Maha Ahmed
This workshop is full

Where

Inprint House
1520 W Main St
Houston, TX 77006 United States
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This is an in-person workshop that takes place at Inprint House.

 

In The Situation & the Story, Vivian Gornick writes, “The subject of autobiography is always self-definition, but it cannot be self-definition in the void.”

This workshop is about filling in the voids. More specifically, this workshop will fill in the spaces around the self with family. It is impossible to ignore the role of family in our lives; family histories comprise so much of who we are, how we love, and the decisions we make. As such, it is natural for us to both avoid and embrace writing about and through our family members. Writing about our families is both difficult and easy, both cathartic and guilt-inducing. This workshop will play in this liminal space of avoidance and excavation, exploring the inevitable human complexities of the people who shaped us.

We will explore work that deals with various dimensions and degrees of family narratives. We will write through our difficult moments, enduring memories, and irresolvable conflicts with our family members. We will read, interrogate, and model work that fulfills the fullest range of these complexities including Brian Blanchfield, Kiese Laymon, Victoria Chang, Michelle Zauner, David Wojnarowicz, and more.

This workshop is open to writers of all genres!

about the instructor

MAHA AHMED is an Egyptian-American poet and translator. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon and is currently an English & Creative Writing PhD candidate at the University of Houston specializing in Empire Studies. Her poetry and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Grist, The Adroit JournalRusted RadishesThe Recluse, and elsewhere. She is the poetry editor for the Beirut-based literary magazine Rusted Radishes and the digital nonfiction editor at Gulf Coast. She is the winner of the 2023 Inprint Donald Barthelme Prize in PoetryHer critical and creative work explores the Arab-American diaspora, eco-poetics, world literature, and the avant-garde. 

By registering for an Inprint Writers Workshop you are agreeing to Inprint’s registration policies. If this workshop is full when you try to register, please sign up on the waiting list here so you receive priority registration the next time this class is offered. For details and a schedule of all the current workshop offerings, click here.