6–9 PM
Join us for an evening discussion on writing from experience, and publishing your work. Our moderator will lead an expert panel in a conversation about how to turn personal experience into publishable prose.
Your experiences, and how you process them, are what make you unique as an individual. They're also the most valuable things we can offer readers. We'll talk about writing from experience in fiction and non-fiction, and how to use our lives as jumping off points and framing devices for the stories we tell about others. We'll also talk about the dangers of writing from experience and overcoming the blocks set in place (often unnecessarily) by our fears of exposure. We'll look at strategies for getting past those fears and for dealing with friends and relatives whose memories might be different from our own. Finally, we'll focus on unlocking our lives and the joy and value of integrating the worlds we know with the worlds we create.
In addition to reflecting on the writing process, the panelists will address issues related to the publishing aspects of writing, such as contacting agents and working with publishing houses. Each panelist comes to 826 with a unique experience and approach, and their combined expertise should prove an invaluable resource for aspiring and seasoned writers alike. No details will be spared, all pertinent secrets will be revealed.
About the moderator:
Stephen Elliott is the author of six books including Happy Baby, a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lion Award as well as a best book of 2004 in Salon.com, Newsday, Chicago New City, the Journal News, and the Village Voice. In addition to writing fiction he frequently writes on politics. In 2004 he wrote Looking Forward To It, about the quest for the Democratic Presidential nomination. He coordinates the Progressive Reading Series. He lives in San Francisco.
About the panelists:
Peter Orner was born in Chicago and is the author of the novel, The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, Finalist for the Los Angles Times Book Prize and the collection, Esther Stories, Finalist for the Pen Hemingway Award, a New York Times Notable Book, and winner of the Rome Prize from The American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is editor of the recently released Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives, a Voice of Witness/ Mcsweeney's book. Twice a recipient of a Pushcart Prize, Orner was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006. He is on the graduate writing faculty at San Francisco State.
Jennifer Traig is the author of the recently-published Well Enough Alone, a hilarious first-person account of life as a hypochondriac, as well as a look at the condition’s history and broader cultural context. She is also the author of the critically-acclaimedDevil in the Details (Little, Brown), Judaikitsch (Chronicle Books) and several young adult books. She's a frequent contributor to McSweeney's Internet Tendency and has a Ph.D. in Literature. She currently lives in Michigan.
Michelle Tea is an incredibly prolific writer from Massachusetts now making her home in San Francisco. Noteworthy among her large body of work is Valencia, an acclaimed story focusing on the Mission and the lesbian culture within; The Beautiful, a transcendent collection of poems and Rent Girl, a harrowing graphic novel. Lyrical and witty, Michelle focuses on women in her writing and has contributed to The Believer Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul and It's So You, while heading the Sister Spit Spoken Word Tour. She is also the Writer-In-Residence at the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute at Tulane University.
Julia Scheeres is the author of the New York Times bestseller Jesus Land - a memoir centering around her relationship with her adopted brother, David. She was born in Lafayette, Indiana. She has written for a variety of newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. She has been a finalist twice for journalism awards presented by the Annenberg School for Communication, and once for an Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) award. Her current home is the Mission District of San Francisco.