About the Workshop

Whether personal, family, or collective, weaving history into fiction means not only incorporating archival material but, often, engaging with difficult, unresolved, and/or otherwise troubled stories. This revision workshop is for writers grappling with lived and inherited histories and archives. Classes will begin with a mini-talk and close reading of excerpts from a range of fiction curated towards workshopping your manuscripts. We’ll address research questions, ethical concerns, craft issues and possibilities, and whatever else has been troubling your process. Be ready to give and receive critique and walk away with fresh eyes, deepened ways of reading, and tools to mold, texture, sharpen, and catalyze drafts into the next phase.

By June 14, students must submit a manuscript-in-progress of up to 4,000 words (double-spaced, 12pt font) that you would like to workshop in class. Email these to Alexis Wright (awright@fawc.org).

About the Instructor

Asako Serizawa was born in Japan and raised in Singapore, Jakarta, and Tokyo. Her debut book of fiction, INHERITORS (Doubleday), won the PEN Open Book Award and The Story Prize Spotlight Award and has been translated into Spanish and Korean. A recipient of grants from the US National Endowment for the Arts and the Mass Cultural Council, her work has been awarded two O. Henry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MacDowell, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and La Fondation Jan Michalski, among others.