Jenn Givhan: Creative Destruction and Revision as Transformation
Due to unforeseen circumstances, Jenn Givhan will not be able to join us live this weekend. She had graciously sent us a recorded version of her presentation. We will play that video live during the meeting, and then the recording of the meeting will be available afterward in our members area. Thank you for your understanding!
To “kill your darlings” is one of the most difficult tasks an author has to face. And facing revision after heartbreaking rejection is enough to turn even the staunchest writers away. What ends up happening in revision is often a buffing the outside rather than going deep back inside and re-envisioning it from the inside. This lecture is all about grit and resilience, about never, ever giving up on your stories or yourself. No matter how many rejections you’ve faced, there is still a viable path to publishing your work and sending it out into the world to find its readers. If the only kind of writing is rewriting, Givhan will show you the nuts and bolts of how to rewrite from the inside out, starting with the writer. Proust says, “The true voyage of discovery is not in seeking new places, but in having new eyes.” Join Givhan in discovering new ways of thinking about ourselves as writers and storytellers who share our hearts with the world.
Jennifer Givhan is a Mexican-American and Indigenous author from the Southwestern desert and the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and PEN/Rosenthal Emerging Voices. She holds a Master’s degree from California State University Fullerton and a Master’s in Fine Arts from Warren Wilson College. She is the author of the novels Trinity Sight, Jubilee, and River Woman, River Demon (all of which were finalists for the Arizona-New Mexico Book Awards). Her writing has appeared in The New Republic, The Nation, POETRY, TriQuarterly, The Boston Review, The Rumpus, Salon, and many others. She’s received the Southwest Book Award, New Ohio Review’s Poetry Prize, Phoebe Journal’s Greg Grummer Poetry Prize, the Pinch Journal Poetry Prize, and Cutthroat’s Joy Harjo Poetry Prize. Givhan has taught at the University of Washington Bothell’s MFA program as well as Western New Mexico University, and has guest lectured at universities across the country. She would love to hear from you at jennifergivhan.com and you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for inspiration, prompts, and real talk about the publishing world and life as a mama writer.
Schedule (Pacific Time)
9:00 am – Zoom link will open for casual chat and networking
9:30–10:30 am Business Meeting
10:30–11:30 pm Workshop