Writing Workshops

History in Literary Fiction and Memoir with Dawn Raffel (Sold Out)

$295

4 Sessions

Out of stock

Once a week Tuesdays, 7:00 pm EDT - 9:00 pm EDT September 12 to October 3, 2023

Online via Zoom

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This workshop has reached its capacity. To join the waitlist, please email Randy Winston at [email protected].

This workshop is for anyone weaving historical and archival research into fiction, memoir, and hybrid work. How do you handle the unknowns, the “holes,” the people and perspectives missing from the records? Where might you find surprising information, beyond the reach of Google? How do you avoid an information dump and make the work sing? How closely must you hew to the facts in search of the deeper truths? We will share some tools and insights, and will discuss works in progress.

Course Outline

Week 1: We’ll begin with an interactive exercise focusing on perception and interpretation, and the importance of understanding our own preconceptions. Next, we’ll discuss ways to find information beyond the scope of Google and AI. We’ll talk about library archives, historical societies, Freedom of Information requests, property deeds, vital records, and probate records, as well as original reporting. We’ll also talk about filling in the holes where information and points of view have not been recorded at all. How do you reconstruct what might have happened?
Weeks 2–4: This is a chance to share your works in progress and the challenges you’re facing. Each participant will get feedback and suggestions from the group.

Capacity: 12

Led by

Dawn Raffel

Dawn Raffel

Dawn Raffel is the author of six books, most recently Boundless as the Sky, a hybrid collection incorporating fiction, image, and early 20th Century history, amid the rise of both fascism and technology. The title novella, set at the 1933 Chicago World’s fair, is told through multiple perspectives, including “ordinary” people and sideshow performers whose voices have been lost to history books. Her previous book, The Strange Case of Dr. Couney, is historical narrative nonfiction based on deep archival research. Other books include a nationally bestselling memoir, The Secret Life of Objects, two story collections and a novel. She has taught creative writing at International Literary Seminars (previously Summer Literary Seminars) in Kenya, Russia, Lithuania, and Canada. You can keep up with Dawn by following her on Instagram at @dawnraffel, or on Twitter at @dawnraffel.

By Dawn Raffel

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Boundless as the Sky

By Dawn Raffel

Published by Sagging Meniscus

PURCHASE

Dawn Raffel’s Boundless as the Sky is a book of the invisible histories that repose beneath the cities we inhabit, and the worlds we try to build out of words. The first of its two parts, stories of real and invented cities, some ancient, some dystopian, is a feminist response to Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. The second part comes together into one narrative, taking place in a single city—Chicago—on a single day in 1933. It is based closely on a true event, the arrival of a “roaring armada of goodwill” in the form of twenty-four seaplanes flown in a display of fascist power by Mussolini’s wingman Italo Balbo to Chicago’s “Century of Progress” World’s Fair. The 7000-mile flight from Rome to Chicago was lauded by both Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Hitler, at a time when aviation made banner headlines across the US, and news of the Nazis was often in a side column. The novella follows a few of the many thousands of Chicagoans there to witness the planes’ arrival. These two panels of Raffel’s poetic diptych call out to each other with a mysterious and disquieting harmony, and from history and fantasy to the dangers and dark realities of the current moment with startling insight and urgency.

About this series

Writing Workshops

We strive to make our classes the most inviting and rewarding available, offering an intimate environment to study with award-winning, world-class writers. Each class is specially designed by the instructor, so whether you’re a fledgling writer or an MFA graduate polishing your novel, you’ll find a perfect fit here.

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