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CityLit Studio V: Writers on Craft, Creativity & Community

October 18, 2020 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Free

CityLit Project presents Studio V: Writers on Craft, Creativity & Community with Maurice Carlos Ruffin & Donna Hemans. A behind-the-scenes look at how writers craft great stories.

This will be a virtual event (Zoom) and is FREE, but as part of Free Fall Baltimore, attendees must pre-register. The Zoom link will only be emailed to those who register.

Attendees are encouraged to purchase the presenting authors’ books through Baltimore’s independent bookstore Greedy Reads.

Free Fall Baltimore is made possible by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and the generous contributions of the Maryland State Arts Council and BGE.

 


 

Starting & Finishing Stories with Maurice Carlos Ruffin

”Often, starting a story is the hardest thing to do. In this session, participants will explore tried and true techniques that will help them find a good place to begin. They’ll also discuss how beginnings are related to endings.”

Novelist Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of We Cast a Shadow, published by One World Random House. The novel was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Ruffin is the winner of several literary prizes, including the Iowa Review Award in fiction and the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition Award for Novel-in-Progress. His work has appeared in the Oxford American, Garden & Gun, and Kenyon Review. A New Orleans native, Ruffin is a professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University, and the 2020-2021 John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at Ole Miss. His next book The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You will be published by One World Random House in 2021.

”Stunning and audacious . . . at once a pitch-black comedy, a chilling horror story, and an endlessly perceptive novel about the possible future of race in America.”
—NPR

To learn more about Maurice, check out this interview.

Twitter: @mauriceruffin   |   Instagram: @mauriceruffin

 

Hit The Ball Where Your Opponent Isn’t: What Tennis Teaches Us About Writing with Donna Hemans

Hit the ball where she isn’t. Move your feet. Keep your eye on the ball. Tennis players have heard these words on the tennis court at one time after another, either as instruction shouted across the net or instructions that play over and over in their heads when a ball, hit too hard, sails beyond the court or the ill-advised drop shot doesn’t even come close to drifting over the net. But what do these instructions also teach us about writing? In this talk, Donna Hemans discusses what tennis teaches her about the craft of writing.

Donna Hemans is the author of two novels: River Woman and Tea by the Sea. Her work has appeared in Electric Literature, Ms. Magazine, The Rumpus, Crab Orchard Review, among others. Donna was the 2007-2008 Black Mountain Institute (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) International Women’s Forum Fellow and twice served as the Lannan Visiting Creative Writer in Residence at Georgetown University. She has received residential fellowships from Hedgebrook, Millay Colony for the Arts, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She received her undergraduate degree in English and Media Studies from Fordham University and an MFA from American University. She lives in Maryland and is the owner of DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers.

Tea By the Sea is a powder keg of a novel, where secrets and lies explode into truth and consequences, all told with spellbinding, shattering power. Hemans doesn’t just fulfill the promise of her debut — she soars past it.”
– Marlon James, Man Booker Prize-winning author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf

To learn more about Donna, check out this interview.

Twitter: @donna_hemans   |   Instagram: @donna_hemans

 

Details

Date:
October 18, 2020
Time:
2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Cost:
Free
Website:
https://citylitstudio2020.eventbrite.com