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The Craft of Fiction: Can Creative Writing Be Taught? Bonnie Chau, Porochista Khakpour, Jee Leong Koh, and Dale Peck Attempt to Answer the Age-Old Question

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Thursday, 7:00 pm EDT October 20, 2022

The Center for Fiction
& Livestreamed

If writing is a craft, how do we classify the teaching of writing? Apprenticeship? Pedagogy? Art? Is it even possible to teach creative writing, or are we essentially teaching students how to better read their own and others’ work? Four authors, editors, and teachers come to our stage to tease out some answers to some of these more philosophical questions. John Oakes moderates what is certain to be a lively conversation. Come prepared with your own questions for them, too!

Presented in partnership with the Evergreen Review.

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In Conversation

  • bonniechauheadshot2021 - Bonnie Chau

    Bonnie Chau

    Bonnie Chau

    Bonnie Chau is a writer from Southern California. She is the author of the short story collection All Roads Lead to Blood, and has spent most of the last two decades working in nonprofits, bookstores, schools, and restaurants. She teaches creative writing and translation at the universities of Columbia and Fordham; is an editor at 4Columns, the Evergreen Review, and Public Books; and serves on the board of directors of the American Literary Translators Association.

  • porochista khakpour

    Porochista Khakpour

    Porochista Khakpour

    Porochista Khakpour’s most recent book, the essay collection Brown Album: Essays on Exile & Identity (Vintage, May 2020), has been praised in the New York Times, O, The Oprah Magazine, TIME, Goop, USA Today, and many other publications. Her next book, Tehrangeles: A Novel, is forthcoming from Pantheon. She is the author of the novels The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, 2014) and Sons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove, 2007). Her memoir Sick (Harper Perennial, 2018) was a Best Book of the Year according to Time magazine, Real Simple, Entropy, Mental Floss, Bitch Media, Autostraddle, the Paris Review, LitHub, and more. She is a contributing editor to the Evergreen Review.

  • Jee Leong Koh Photo by Guy E. Humphrey - Claire Fennell

    Jee Leong Koh

    Jee Leong Koh

    Jee Leong Koh is the author of Steep Tea (Carcanet), named a Best Book of the Year by U.K.’s Financial Times and a Finalist by Lambda Literary. He has also published the hybrid work of fiction Snow at 5 PM: Translations of an Insignificant Japanese Poet (Bench Press). His new Carcanet book Inspector Inspector was released in August, 2022. He is poetry editor of the Evergreen Review.

    Photo Credit: Guy E. Humphrey

  • Dale-Peck-credit-Lou-Peralta-1024x768 - Claire Fennell

    Dale Peck

    Dale Peck

    Dale Peck, editor-in-chief of the Evergreen Review, is the author of fourteen books in a variety of genres, including Visions and Revisions, Martin and John, Hatchet Jobs, and Sprout. His fiction and criticism have appeared in dozens of publications, and have earned him two O. Henry Awards, a Pushcart Prize, a Lambda Literary Award, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. He lives in New York City, where he has taught in the New School’s Graduate Writing Program since 1999.

    Photo Credit: Lou Peralta

  • John Oakes by Miriam Berkley - Claire Fennell

    John Oakes

    John Oakes

    John Oakes is publisher of the Evergreen Review. He is a co-founder of OR Books, where he is now editor-at-large, and has been editor or publisher at many independent presses. For a number of years he taught book publishing at the New School and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. His book The Fast: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Promise of Fasting is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster.

    Photo Credit: Miriam Berkley