This Is How We Do It: Black Writers give up the goods on writing, publishing, and all literary things
90-MINUTE CRAFT INTENSIVE
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm
Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
Lobby Stage
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Contributors of Hurston-Wright Foundation’s How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill edited by Jericho Brown and Darlene Taylor, share their essays and best practices. A handbook and a reference tool, How We Do It is a thoughtful representation of Black literary artists who establish their own creative practice while celebrating and widening the scope of the Black writer’s role in art, history, and culture. Used as a tool and guide, writers are offered a chance to explore and examine the complexities of range and style with essays, including “When a Character Returns”, “How to Write a Memoir or Take Me To The River”, “Write What You Know or Nah?”. All are welcome to this 90-minute craft intensive to hear from premiere authors. Co-founder and President Emerita of the Zora Neale Hurston/ Richard Wright Foundation, MARITA GOLDEN is an award-winning author of over twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her most recent nonfiction is The New Black Woman Loves Herself, Has Boundaries, Heals Every Day. RION AMLICAR SCOTT is the author of the story collections The World Doesn’t Require You and Insurrections. The Toast’s, Melissa Moorer says, “…Scott’s people do not stay in their place, they will burn themselves into you and you’ll find yourself thinking about them all the time. ” TRICIA ELAM WALKER, is a lawyer, educator, and an award-winning author of the acclaimed novel Breathing Room and two children’s books and a professor of Creative Writing at Howard University. Multidisciplinary DC-based artist DARLENE R. TAYLOR’s creative works explore race, place, and memory in fiction and visual narratives that reclaim Black life in mixed media silhouettes. In the words of Taylor, “These pages offer cultured visions of the way Black writers gather, remember, and talk it out.”
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MARITA GOLDEN is an award-winning author of over twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her many books include the novels The Wide Circumference of Love, After, and the memoirs Migrations of the Heart, Saving Our Sons, and Don’t Play in the Sun One Woman’s Journey Through the Color Complex. Her most recent work of nonfiction is The New Black Woman Loves Herself Has Boundaries Heals Every Day. She is the recipient of many awards including the Writers for Writers Award presented by Barnes & Noble and Poets and Writers, an award from the Authors Guild, and the Fiction Award for her novel After being awarded by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She has lectured and read from her work internationally. Co-founder and President Emerita of the Zora Neale Hurston/ Richard Wright Foundation, Marita Golden is a veteran writing teacher at many universities, including Virginia Commonwealth University, Johns Hopkins, and George Mason University. She was a guest on the Oprah Winfrey and a question on Jeopardy! As a literary consultant, she offers writing workshops, coaching, and manuscript evaluation services.
www.maritagolden.com
Twitter: @maritagolden
RION AMLICAR SCOTT is the author of the story collections The World Doesn’t Require You and Insurrections, which was awarded the 2017 PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the 2017 Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020, and McSweeney’s Quarterly, among other publications.
www.rionamilcarscott.com
Twitter: @reeamilcarscott
Instagram:@reeamilcarscott
DARLENE R. TAYLOR is a Washington, DC-based multidisciplinary artist. Her creative works explore race, place, and memory in fiction and visual narratives that reclaim Black life in mixed media silhouettes. She is the recipient of creative writing and visual art fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, D.C. Commission on Arts and Humanities, American Antiquarian Society, American Association of University Women, Callaloo, and Kimbilio. Taylor is the inaugural Aminah Robinson Writer-in-Residence at the Columbus Museum of Art and solo exhibition artist at the Academy Art Museum in Maryland. Her art is in private collections and the Columbus Museum of Art. Her writings appear in journals and anthologies. She is a contributor to How We Do It: Black Writers on Craft, Practice, and Skill.darlenertaylor.com
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CityLit Project and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in partnership with Chesapeake Shakespeare Company present CityLit Festival: Dismantling the Culture of Silence. This celebration of the arts showcases a bevy of leading poets and writers on April 20, 2024. We’re talking fiction, nonfiction, poetry galore, and ways to up the ante on your craft.
Download the CityLit Festival: Dismantling the Culture of Silence flyer.