Writing Workshops

Our First Gods: Writing Our Parents with Joe Wilkins (November 2024)

$125

1 Session

Out of stock

Saturday, 2:00 pm EDT - 6:30 pm EDT November 23, 2024

Online via Zoom

Too often unapproachable, unassailable, or absent, our parents are our first gods. Their relationship to us provokes the most existential questions: How have we known them in the past and how do we know them now? How deep is the ache of not knowing them more fully—and are we ready to see our parents not as gods (or devils) but as the human beings they are? In this generative workshop, participants will think, discuss, and write about their parents with the goal of producing the beginnings of a personal essay as well as finding their way toward a better understanding of their parents.

This course is held online via Zoom.

Led by

Joe Wilkins

Joe Wilkins

Joe Wilkins was born and raised on the Big Dry of eastern Montana and now lives with his family in the foothills of the Coast Range of Oregon, where he directs the creative writing program at Linfield University. His debut novel, Fall Back Down When I Die, was praised as “remarkable and unforgettable” in a starred review at Booklist. A finalist for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, Fall Back Down When I Die won the High Plains Book Award and has subsequently been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, and German editions. Wilkins is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers, and four collections of poetry, including Thieve and When We Were Birds, winner of the Oregon Book Award. His latest novel, The Entire Sky, is now out from Little, Brown.

Photo Credit: Alexis Bonogofsky

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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