Creative Nonfiction Week

October 18-22, 2010
Unless otherwise noted, events take place at Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.

An annual collaboration among the Department of English, Fiction Writing, and Journalism, Creative Nonfiction Week presents a range of voices, familiar and new, renowned and emerging, all helping to define and redefine the genre of creative nonfiction. Past presenters include Alex Kotlowitz, Scott McCloud, Art Spiegelman, Jamaica Kincaid, Beverly Donofrio, Luis Alberto Urrea, and many others. Creative nonfiction comes in many forms: memoir, narrative journalism, travel writing, personal essay, descriptive storytelling, and more. What they all have in common is a basis in reality from careful observation to honest, emotional truth. 

All events are free and open to the public. Creative Nonfiction Week is cosponsored by the Departments of English, Fiction Writing, and Journalism. This year’s program includes collaboration with the Departments of Radio and Film & Video, as well as with Critical Encounters.

Jump to the schedule for:
M 18 October || T 19 October || W 20 October || R 21 October || F 22 October 

Reader and Panelist bios

Monday, October 18

3:30 p.m: Student Readings
Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
Featuring: Wes Jamison (Nonfiction program); Troy Covello (Journalism); Sarah Ostman (Journalism); Tina Simpson (Nonfiction program); Jessie Morrison (Fiction); and Chris Terry (Fiction).

6:30 p.m: The Onion A.V. Club
Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
The A.V. Club has become a multi-media brand, and it has authored two books. The A.V. Club team (Josh Modell, Keith Phipps, Tasha Robinson, Kyle Ryan, and Nathan Rabin) will talk about their collaboration and the individual projects that have grown out of it.

Tuesday, October 19

3:30 p.m: Radio Narrative Nonfiction Panel
Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
Personal essays. Memoir. Commentary. These are among the creative nonfiction forms that can be translated to radio. Aurora Aguilar, senior producer of Eight Forty-Eight; David W. Berner, associate professor in the Department of Radio at Columbia College Chicago; Gwen Macsai, host Re:sound; and Natalie Moore, reporter, Chicago Public Radio, will talk about the challenges and opportunities of writing narrative for radio.

6:30 p.m.: S.L. Wisenberg
Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
S. L. Wisenberg, author of The Adventures of Cancer Bitch, is the codirector of Northwestern University's MA/MFA in Creative Writing program and a visiting scholar in Gender Studies at Northwestern. The author of The Sweetheart Is In and Holocaust Girls: History, Memory, and Other Obsessions, Wisenberg's poetry and prose have been published in the New Yorker, Ploughshares, Tikkun, and the New England Review, and anthologized in Short Takes: Brief Encounters with Contemporary Nonfiction, and Creating Nonfiction: A Guide and Anthology.

Wednesday, October 20

1:00 p.m.: Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates
Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.

3:30 p.m.: Faculty Readings
Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
Featuring:
David Lazar (Nonfiction program)
Noah Isackson (Journalism)
Germania Solórzano (Fiction)

6:30 p.m.: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for Atlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. A former staff writer for The Village Voice and Time, his work has also appeared in the Washington City Paper, The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Thursday, October 21

3:30 p.m.: South Loop Review: Creative Nonfiction + Art
Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
South Loop Review: Creative Nonfiction + Art is a magazine that publishes nonfiction in lyric and narrative forms, as well as photography and art that blends image and word. The latest issue of South Loop features the work of Maureen Seaton, Jon Pineda, Cheryl Rogers Resetarits, and Betty Heredia, among others. The publication release reading will include readings from contributors, a question and answer session, and a reception.

6:30 p.m.: David Shields
Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
David Shields’s new book, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, has been hailed by critics as “the most provocative, brain-rewiring book of 2010” (GQ) and “mind-bending” (the New York Times). His previous book, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead, was a New York Times bestseller. He is the author of eight other books, including Black Planet: Facing Race during an NBA Season, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; Remote: Reflections on Life in the Shadow of Celebrity, winner of the PEN/Revson Award; and Dead Languages: A Novel, winner of the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award. His essays and stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Salon, and Slate 

Friday, October 22

6:30 p.m.:  Bryan Smith
Stage Two, 618 S. Michigan Ave.
The Kamchatka Project: In Summer 2010, adventure filmmaker Bryan Smith of Reel Water Productions embarked on a trip to the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia. This is one of the last truly wild places on Earth, where one sixth and one fourth of all salmon spawn, where some of the densest brown bear populations in the world live, where there are no dams, where there are no massive extractive resource operations, and where there is less than one person per square kilometer. Kamchatka’s rivers and salmon populations are threatened by an alarming increase in poaching for caviar, industrial land use designations, and the lack of effective exploration and research. Working with scientists, conservation groups, and local Russians, this expedition aimed to contribute in establishing the critical data, curriculum, and exposure needed to protect these river drainages and the salmon that depend on them.

Readers and Panelists

Aurora Aguilar
As senior producer of Eight Forty-Eight, Chicago Public Radio’s weekday morning newsmagazine, Aurora is responsible for all editorial content and writing. Aurora joined the staff of Chicago Public Radio in July 2002 as an associate editor for Eight Forty-Eight. Aurora has received numerous Lisagor, Associated Press and Edward R. Murrow Regional Awards in recognition for exceptional editing, writing and production. Most recently, she was recognized by the National Association for Black Journalists for editing a community forum on violence in Chicago.  Prior to joining Chicago Public Radio, Aurora worked as a staff writer at the Daily Herald, covering city government, crime, community and courts. She has also written for the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority and Echo magazine. Aurora has a B.A. in Journalism from Columbia College Chicago.
A native of Chicago, Aurora resides in the Kenwood neighborhood with her husband, Evan.

David W Berner
David W. Berner is an award-winning journalist, writer, documentarian, and teacher. His essays and reporting have been published in numerous magazines and literary journals, and his broadcast work has been aired on National Public Radio, the CBS Radio Network, and public radio stations across the United States. David is an associate professor at Columbia College Chicago, teaching writing, audio documentary, and radio narrative. His 2009 book, Accidental Lessons—A Memoir of a Rookie Teacher and a Life Renewed, has been praised by reviewers as “terrific” and “elegantly written”. He is currently working on an audio documentary about the POW-MIA bracelets of the Vietnam War era.  

Troy Covello
Troy Covello is a Journalism student at Columbia College Chicago.  He is serving as the managing editor for ECHO magazine this semester.

Noah Isackson
Noah Isackson is a magazine writer based in Chicago.  A contributing editor at Chicago Magazine, his work has also appeared in Time, People, the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Time Out Chicago, the Boston Globe, and Men’s Health, among other publications.  His Chicago magazine article “Heir Jordan” was cited in the "Notable" section of Best American Sports Writing 2008.  He has also appeared as a guest on Chicago Public Radio, WGN-TV Morning News, CBS 2 News Chicago, WGN-AM Radio, and CLTV News in Chicago.  He is a former general assignment reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the Associated Press, assigned to the Chicago and Sacramento, Calif., bureaus.  He began his journalism career in 1997, after graduating from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism (BSJ) with an additional degree in Fiction Writing (BA).

Wes Jamison
As an undergraduate, Wes Jamison majored in Literary Studies and Creative Writing, every day finding himself amidst rich traditions that he felt the responsibility and need to continue.  His interests lying in both the theoretical and practical, the academic and creative, his work has been primarily of a hybrid form.  His poetry and essays have been published in Quiz & Quill and Echoes of Creativity and Conscience; and his manuscipt, Where You Yourself Were, won the 2010 John W. Fisher Memorial Senior Writer’s Award.  Now pursuing an MFA in Creative Nonfiction, he hopes to continue to find ways to speak and read and write honestly in order to try to make sense of, come to terms with, and express things that he is still not sure how to rightly express. 

David Lazar
David Lazar’s books include The Body of Brooklyn and Truth in Nonfiction (Iowa), Michael Powell: Interviews and Conversations with M.F.K. Fisher (Mississippi), Powder Town (Pecan Grove), and the forthcoming anthology, Essaying the Essay. His essays and prose poetry have appeared widely. Several of his essays have been named “Notable Essays of the Year” by Best American Essays. He has taught and lectured on nonfiction and editing at Ohio University, the Chautauqua Institution, Goucher College, the Indiana University Writers’ Conference, Rice University, the Wexner Center, and Columbia College Chicago, where he is a professor and Director of the Nonfiction Program. He is the founding editor of the literary magazine Hotel Amerika.

Gwen Macsai
Gwen Macsai is host of Re:sound, a weekly program on WBEZ-FM. An award-winning writer, producer and humorist, Macsai’s radio work has aired on All Things Considered, Morning Edition, and Weekend Edition Saturday. She’s also the creator of the television sitcom What About Joan starring Joan Cusack, and author of Lipshtick, a book of humorous first-person essays.

Josh Modell
Josh Modell, general manager, The A.V. Club made his first foray into journalism in grade school, whenhe wrote a sarcastic piece skewering lunchroom food. (Sample line: "It was smooth sailing on my Taco Boat!") The subject was re-examined in a middle-school monologue (to rapturous applause), but Modell eventually turned his critical pen toward music. In late 1993, he launched Milk Magazine, a regional print publication (this is before ya'll had websites!) with an eye toward indie-rock. Milk wound to a close just as The A.V. Club came calling, and with more than a little backstabbing and water-cooler character assassination, Modell worked his way up the ladder to Local Content Editor, a title which probably means nothing to you, but at least sort of pleases his parents.

Jessie Morrison
Jessie Morrison is a Creative Writing Fiction MFA student at Columbia College Chicago and an English teacher at Loyola Academy in Wilmette. A native of Chicago, she writes a blog, “MFA Confidential” for Writer’s Digest magazine. Her work has also appeared in Word Riot, McSweeny’s, The Copperfield Review, and The Columbia Storyweek Reader.” 

Natalie Moore
As the reporter for Chicago Public Radio’s South Side Bureau in Englewood, a neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Natalie covers news and issues in that community and surrounding areas.  Prior to joining the Chicago Public Radio staff in May 2007, Natalie was a city hall reporter for the Detroit News. She has also been an education reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and a reporter for the Associated Press in Jerusalem. Natalie’s work has been published in Essence, Black Enterprise, the Chicago Reporter, Bitch, In These Times, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. She is co-author of the book Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation. (Cleis Press, 2006). Natalie is a 2009 fellow at Columbia College’s Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media. She's also on the board of directors of the Neighborhood Writing Alliance. Natalie has an M.S.J. in Newspaper Management from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a B.A. in Journalism from Howard University. She is an adjunct instructor at Columbia College Chicago and is the former program chair for the Association for Women Journalists. A native of Chicago, Natalie lives in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago.

Sarah Ostman
Sarah Ostman is a journalism graduate student at Columbia College Chicago. She recently completed an internship at the Chicago Sun-Times, where she helped cover the corruption trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Her work has also been published on ChicagoTalks.org, AustinTalks.org, Lake Effect News and in Humane Society International's "Animal Sheltering" magazine

Keith Phipps
Keith Phipps, editor, The A.V. Club, was born in a suburb of Dayton, OH and was raised in a way that allowed him to immerse himself in books, music, and movies.After attending college at Wittenberg University and grad school at the University Wisconsin-Madison, he took a job in the fast-paced world of video-store clerking. At the same time he began working as a freelance writer for The A.V. Club where served as assistant editor from 1997 to 2004 and as editor from 2004 to the present.

Nathan Rabin
Nathan Rabin has been the Head Writer for the A.V Club since the late 1990s. He is the author of the memoir The Big Rewind: A Memoir Brought To You By Pop Culture, and The A.V Club Presents My Year of Flops: One Man's Journey Deep Into the Heart of Cinematic Failure, a collection of essays that comes out October 19th on Scribner. He is currently working on a book about maligned musical subgenres and has inexplicably become obsessed with the Insane Clown Posse as of late.

Tasha Robinson
Tasha Robinson, associate editor, The A.V Club, has this theory that all born entertainment writers start out doing scutwork in a related field: Her first job was in a library, and she's noticed that most A.V. Club critics started out clerking in music stores, book shops, and video-rental places. She maintains her theory by pointing to them and studiously ignoring any contradictory data. She grew up in Maryland, where she started writing bad genre fiction at age 7 or so, and she eventually went to the University of Iowa for the Writer's Workshop program, which not only broke her of writing genre fiction, but also turned her off fiction writing in general. Since then, she's been a critic, copyeditor, editor, and designer for various publications. She got a double BA at Iowa (film and journalism) in 1991, started writing for The A.V. Club in 1998, became a full-time writer-editor in 2000, and hasn't looked back since. Though she sometimes still wishes she worked in a library.

Kyle Ryan
Kyle Ryan, managing editor, The A.V Club, has two first names and can never tell if people are simplyconfused when they call him "Ryan," or if they're one of those last-name users. He grew up in Houston, where he attended an all-male, Jesuit-run high school that quickly turned him into an anti-authoritarian smartass—i.e., someone perfectly suited for a future career at The A.V. Club. At 16, he discovered punk rock and began interviewing bands, and he pretty much hasn't stopped since. After graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia's journalism school in 1998, he moved to Chicago, where he steadfastly retains his allegiance to the Astros and lives with his wife.

Tina Simpson
Tina Simpson is a senior in the Creative Nonfiction Program at Columbia College. Her most recent work, a meditation on darkness in experimental essay form, will appear in the South Loop Review, Volume 12.  She also won the 2009 Numinous Magazine Poetry Prize for a collection of poems on travel and transformation.

Germania Solórzano
Germania Solórzano is an adjunct professor in the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago and a  professional development specialist at Northeastern Illinois University’s Chicago Teachers’ Center. A former teacher with the Chicago Public Schools, she has an MA in Education from St. Xavier University and a Creative Writing, Fiction MFA from Columbia. She has been published in The Teaching Artist Journal, All Hands, and Hair Trigger.  

Chris Terry
Chris Terry is a Creative Writing Fiction MFA student. He spent his teen years in Richmond, VA where he, “became involved with the punk scene... self-published a zine, and sang in loud bands.” His fiction has appeared in Millennium Magazine and Hair Trigger, and his nonfiction in Razorcake and RVA Magazine.