What Cheer Writers Club

Setting is often an overlooked element of story, especially in memoir and autobiographical fiction. But paying attention to place can help convey cross-cultural experiences of immigration, dislocation, social mobility, and other circumstances impacted by racism and discrimination. This workshop will consider works by Randa Jarrar, Alison Bechdel, Julia Alvarez and Lamtharn Hantrakul to discuss how they use place to break silences of war, colonialism and prejudice. After drawing maps as a way to orient ourselves to the idea of "home”…

Punctuation works differently in poetry than in the mundane world of work emails and everyday prose. Why do you need to learn about it? Because it’s a great tool for control, texture and mood-tweaking! This isn’t a “rules” course—we’ll be looking at the effect of stops and pauses in the work of master poets such as Louise Gluck, Anne Carson and Brigit Pegeen Kelly, as well as other usual suspects and new arrivals, and chatting about the feel of various…