Creative Nonfiction Week, 2009
Creative Nonfiction Week, 2009
Welcome from the Co-Chairs
Welcome to Creative Nonfiction Week 2009. Creative nonfiction is a form that continues to be examined and redefined as the landscape of media, literature and communications continues to evolve. For the ninth year, Columbia College Chicago explores the diversity of voices and points of view that make creative nonfiction such a rich form of literature.
From October 19 – 23, join Columbia’s English, Journalism and Fiction Writing Departments as they welcome Luis Urrea, Laurie Lindeen, Chris Rose, and John D’Agata, along with Columbia faculty and student writers and local Chicago writers for readings, lectures and panel discussions (See detailed schedule below). All events, unless otherwise indicated, will take place at Columbia’s Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor. All events are free and open to the public. For more information call 312-369-7611.
All events are free and open to the public. Creative Nonfiction Week is co-sponsored by the departments of Fiction Writing, English, and Journalism.
Jump to the schedule for:
M 19 October || T 20 October || W 21 October || R 22 October || F 23 October
Speaker Bios || Readers and Panelists
For more information:
Please contact Robert Duffer
by phone: (312) 369-7611
or email: duffer [at] robertduffer.com.
Daily Schedule
11:30 AM Bring the Reader In: Fiction Techniques in Nonfiction
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor
Columbia Fiction Writing Professor Emeriti John Schultz (No One Was Killed) and Betty Shiflett (We Dream of Tours), literary agent Michele Rubin, along with author and alumnus Arnie Bernstein (Bath Massacre) and alumna and adjunct faculty Kathie Bergquist (A Field Guide to Gay & Lesbian Chicago), discuss point-of-view, accuracy, empathy and story in writing nonfiction.
3:30 PM Student Readings
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor
Experience the powerful voices of the next literary generation with readings by emerging writers from English, Fiction Writing, and Journalism departments. Featuring Nicole Faust (English), Sophia Ulmer (English), Jon Gugala (Fiction), Lisa Cisneros (Journalism), and Thomas Pardee (Journalism).
6:30 PM Luis Urrea
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor
Luis Alberto Urrea is a 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame. He is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph. An essayist, poet and novelist, Urrea is the author of 11 critically acclaimed books including The Devil’s Highway, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life, and Into the Beautiful North.
3:30 PM Words + Music
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor
Join a cast of writers as they discuss writing about music in the world of blogs, books, newspapers, and magazines. Panelists include Brian DiCrescenzo, Music Editor of Time Out Chicago, Laura Emerick, Chicago Sun-Times Arts Editor, Max G., blogger of Gowhere Hip Hop at Chicago Now, memoirist and former frontwoman for Zuzu’s Petals Laurie Lindeen, and Fiction Writing Department faculty member and Ray Bradbury biographer Sam Weller.
6:30 PM Laurie Lindeen in conversation with Elizabeth Yokas
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor
Former frontwoman for the indie rock band Zuzu’s Petals, Laurie Lindeen is the author of the 2007 memoir Petal Pusher and a finalist for the Bush Artistic Fellowship in 2009. Lindeen teaches creative writing in TwinCities schools for the COMPAS/WAITS organization. She is currently at work on a novel and two collections of essays.
3:30 PM Faculty Readings
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor
Aviya Kushner (English), Lisa Schlesinger (Fiction Writing), and Yolanda Joe (Journalism), share their work.
6:30 PM Chris Rose in conversation with Randy Albers
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor
Chris Rose is a columnist for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, an essayist for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and a frequent commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition. In 2006, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary in recognition of his Katrina columns and was awarded a share in the Times-Picayune staff's Pulitzer for Public Service.
Thursday/ October 22
3:30 PM The Lost Origins of the Essay
Film Row Cinema, 1104 S. Wabash, 8th floor
Award-winning essayist John D’Agata; along with David Lazar, editor of Hotel Amerika and head of Columbia’s program in Creative Nonfiction; and Jenny Boully, poet, essayist and Creative Nonfiction faculty, discuss the craft of the essay.
6:30 PM John D'Agata
*Note change of venue: Ferguson Auditorium, 600 S. Michigan Ave, 1st Floor
John D'Agata is the author of Halls of Fame and the forthcoming About a Mountain. Editor of two groundbreaking anthologies on the essay, The Next American Essay and its newly released companion The Lost Origins of the Essay, he has been awarded a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. He is editor of lyric essays for the Seneca Review and teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa.
Event presented in collaboration with Critical Encounters: Fact and Faith
3:30 PM South Loop Review: Creative Nonfiction + Art reading and reception
*Note change of venue: Hokin Gallery, 623 S. Wabash, 1st Floor
South Loop Review is the student-edited journal of creative nonfiction published each fall by the Creative Nonfiction program of Columbia’s English Department. Come and join the reading and reception for Volume 11.
Speaker Bios
John D'Agata is the author of Halls of Fame and the forthcoming About a Mountain. Editor of two groundbreaking anthologies on the essay, The Next American Essay and its newly released companion The Lost Origins of the Essay, he has been awarded a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction. He is editor of lyric essays for the Seneca Review and teaches creative writing at the University of Iowa.
Laurie Lindeen is the author of the memoir PETAL PUSHER (Atria, ’07). She holds an MFA from the University of Minnesota and currently teaches creative writing in TwinCities schools for the COMPAS/WAITS organization. A finalist for the Bush Artistic Fellowship in 2009, she’s working on a novel and two collections of essays. Her essays can be found at themorningnews.org. She used to front the indie rock band Zuzu’s Petals. Laurie lives in Minnesota with her husband and son.
Chris Rose is a columnist for The Times-Picayune in New Orleans, an essayist for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, and a frequent commentator for National Public Radio's Morning Edition. In 2006, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Commentary in recognition of his Katrina columns and was awarded a share in the Times-Picayune staff's Pulitzer for Public Service. Rose lives in New Orleans with his three children.
Award-winning and critically acclaimed author Luis Alberto Urrea has written 11 books, including the national bestsellers The Hummingbird's Daughter and The Devil's Highway. A 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Devil's Highway, Urrea has also won the Kiriyama Prize for fiction, a Lannan Literary Award, an American Book Award, a Christopher Award, and a Western States Book Award.
Randall Albers chairs the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago, one of the largest undergraduate and graduate writing programs in the country, and is the founding producer of the Story Week Festival of Writers. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Chicago Review, Northfield Magazine, Mendocino Review, Writing from Start to Finish, F Magazine, Writing in Education, and elsewhere. A former winner of the Columbia College Teaching Excellence Award, he is the co-writer and co-producer of the Story Workshop teaching of writing video tapes, The Living Voice Moves and Story from First Impulse to Final Draft. His fiction has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and a chapter from his novel-in-progress, All the World Before Them, appeared in the last issue of F Magazine.
Kathie Bergquist is the author of five books of non-fiction, including A Field Guide to Gay and Lesbian Chicago (co-written with Robert McDonald, Lake Claremont Press, 2006), and four biographies of pop stars written for teenagers (with lots of pix and exclamation points!!!), all published by Billboard Books and Virgin U.K. Publishing. The City Editor of the Not For Tourists Chicago guidebook, and a regular contributor to The Chicago Reader, her writing has appeared in Publishers Weekly, The Advocate, Out, Curve, Girlfriends, and Diva magazines, and in several anthologies and journals. Bergquist has an MFA in Creative Writing and is adjunct faculty in the Fiction Writing and English departments of Columbia College Chicago.
Arnie Bernstein, author of Bath Massacre, received his Masters from Columbia Fiction in 1994. He has been honored by the Illinois State Library and is recipient of numerous grants and awards. Bernstein is a board member of The Society of Midland Authors and teaches composition at Triton and Morton Colleges.
Jenny Boully is the author of the forthcoming not merely because of the unknown that was stalking towards them (Tarpaulin Sky Press), The Book of Beginnings and Endings (Sarabande), [one love affair]* (Tarpaulin Sky Books), The Body: An Essay (Essay Press), and the chapbook Moveable Types (Noemi Press, 2007). Her work has been anthologized in The Next American Essay, The Best American Poetry, Language for a New Century, and Great American Prose Poems. Her work has been published in Boston Review, Gulf Coast, Fourth Genre, Columbia, Verse, Seneca Review, Conduit, and other places. She is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and holds previous graduate degrees in creative writing from the University of Notre Dame and Hollins University. She joined the faculty at Columbia College Chicago in 2008.
Lisa Cisneros is a senior at Columbia College majoring in Journalism. She enjoys dark humor and tries to present that in her work when appropriate. She knows everybody has a story to tell and she's open to other's opinions and loves to hear what people have to say. She enjoys writing about everyday issues that affect people's lives and aspires to write novels and plays in the future.
After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, Brent DiCrescenzo dabbled in the film biz while helping create the music criticism website, Pitchfork. In early 2008, he became the music editor of Time Out Chicago.
Laura Emerick is the arts editor of the Chicago Sun-Times, where she began her career after graduating from Indiana University with a B.A. in journalism and environmental science. She coordinates and oversees movie and classical music coverage at the Sun-Times and also serves as the primary editor of film critic Roger Ebert. Among her passions are opera and Latin music; she also serves as Latin music/culture writer for the Sun-Times. She was a 2008 Getty Arts Journalism Fellow, and was selected for the 2007 New York Times/Museum of the Moving Image Institute in Film Criticism and the 2006 NEA Arts Journalism Institute in Classical Music and Opera.
Max G, 22, is a Chicago artist, fashion designer, entrepreneur, manager, strategist, and blogger/co-owner of gowherehiphop.com on the Chicago Tribune's ChicagoNow.com. Max G/. is a student at SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) majoring in Visual Communications/Design and utilizes those skills on all freelance entrepreneurial facets, and as the designer and editor of all Gowhere Hip Hop related artistic content.
Nicole Faust is a Creative Nonfiction major in her fourth year at Columbia College. She prefers John to Paul and fall to spring. She believes in passive resistance but practices passive aggression. She will quit chewing her fingernails when she finds something else to do with her hands. She is comforted by the notion that her future is written.
Jon Gugala was born in Detroit, Michigan. After four years as a trombone player in the Marine Corps, he is now a senior in the Fiction Department at Columbia College Chicago. His nonfiction has appeared in The Columbia Chronicle, The New River Anthology, The Loop, and Chicago Life Magazine. He has been a featured reader at Silver Tongue and Second Story. He was a runner-up in the 2008 Playboy College Fiction Contest. He enjoys reading, running far, and travel.
Yolanda Joe is the author of four acclaimed novels, including the Essence bestsellers This Just In, Bebe’s By Golly Wow, and He Say, She Say. A graduate of Yale and of the Columbia School of Journalism and a former news producer, she lives in Chicago.
Aviya Kushner is the author of And There Was Evening, And There Was Morning, about the experience of reading the Bible in English after a lifetime of reading it in Hebrew, which is forthcoming from Random House. Her essays have appeared in Partisan Review, The Jerusalem Post, The Wilson Quarterly, and Poets & Writers. Her fiction has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, and her poems have been published in Harvard Review, Prairie Schooner, Passages North, The Saint Ann’s Review, and Salamander. She covers books and authors for The Jerusalem Post, and she is a contributing editor at A Public Space. She holds an MFA from The University of Iowa in nonfiction writing, an MA from Boston University’s creative writing program in poetry, a Cértificat Supérieur from the Sorbonne, and a BA from The Johns Hopkins University in the Writing Seminars and the History of Art.
David Lazar’s books include The Body of Brooklyn (Iowa), Michael Powell: Interviews (Mississippi), Conversations with M.F.K. Fisher (Mississippi), Truth in Nonfiction (Iowa) and a book of prose poems, Powder Town (Pecan Grove). His essays and prose poetry have appeared widely. He is the founding editor of Hotel Amerika. Several of his essays have been named “Notable Essays of the Year” by Best American Essays. He received his Ph.D. in Nonfiction and Literature from the University of Houston, and established the doctoral program in nonfiction writing at Ohio University before coming to Columbia College Chicago. He has taught and lectured on nonfiction and editing at the Chautauqua Institution, Goucher College, the Indiana University Writers’ Conference, Rice University, the Wexner Center, and elsewhere.
Thomas Pardee is a Journalism major from Modesto, Calif., studying magazine writing, editing and design as well as creative nonfiction writing. Thomas just completed a competitive summer internship with the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) in New York on the staff of Sherman's Travel magazine. He's previously interned as a writer and reporter at The Modesto Bee, a multimedia assistant for The Chicago Tribune, and a reviewer for the movie news website TheScoreCardReview.com. He's also worked as an editor for Columbia College's newspaper, The Columbia Chronicle, and is currently working on the staff of its magazine, Echo. He's slated to start an internship with Chicago magazine in January.
Michele Rubin has been with Writers House in New York City as a Senior Literary Agent since 1991. She represents a wide variety of non-fiction, her area of concentration, as well as select fiction. Ms. Rubin also represents the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr. and specializes in electronic and digital rights.
Lisa Schlesinger's plays include Wal-martyrs, Celestial Bodies, Twenty One Positions (with Naomi Wallace and Abed Fattah Abusrour), Same Egg, Manny and Chicken, Rock Ends Ahead, Bow Echo, The Bones of Danny Winston, Artist of Transparency, as well as Our ( ) Town. She is at work on an opera, Harmonicus Mundi, commissioned by the Ensemble Studio Theatre with Portland Stage Company and funded by the Sloan Foundation, and a new play with Rivendell Theatre. Most recently, her play Leaner than Light: 12 Frames of Paul Engle, commissioned by the International Writing Program, was read at the University of Iowa. She has also received commissions from the Guthrie Theatre, the BBC, and Upstart Crow Project, and fellowships from the NEA, CEC International, the Iowa Arts Council, and the Ford and the Sloan Foundations. She is recipient of the NEA/TCG Playwrights Residency Award and winner of the BBC International Playwriting Competition. She is an artistic associate with In Parenthesis. Lisa's published essays include "Mediterranean Blues," "Postcards from Gaza and Other Unspeakable Geographies," "There is near and not far," and "Predator/Prey and Other Thoughts on Love." She serves as coordinator of the Playwriting Program and teaches playwriting at Columbia College Chicago. Photo: Alexi Schlesinger
John Schultz is the originator of the Story Workshop® Approach to the Teaching of Writing and Professor Emeritus of the Columbia College Chicago Fiction Writing Department. His numerous publications include The Tongues of Men (stories and novellas), No One Was Killed, The Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Writing From Start to Finish, and the Teacher's Manual for Writing From Start to Finish. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many journals and collections, including Big Table, Evergreen Review, Georgia Review, Chicago Reader, College English, and the UMKC Law Review. He is also the founder and president of f Magazine. He is also founder and president of the Story Workshop Institute, and a Principal Story Workshop Master Teacher.
Betty Shiflett is a professor emeritus and consultant, writer, playwright, and co-producer of Story Workshop videotapes. She is an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship recipient and nominee for two Pushcart Prizes in fiction, and is the author of We Dream of Tours (play), and Phantom Rider (music drama). Stories, articles, and novels and play excerpts have appeared in Life, Evergreen Review, American Fiction: Best Unpublished Short Stories by American Writers, Fiction and Poetry by Texas Women, Emergence: Writings by Women, Private Arts, F Magazine, Writing From Start to Finish, College English, and The Sichuan Literature Monthly, translation by award-winning novelist Geling Yan. She is an Inaugural Fellow for Excellence in Teaching and a Certified Principal Story Workshop Master Teacher.
Sophia Ulmer was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She is a Creative Nonfiction major at Columbia College Chicago. Post-graduation, Sophia plans to earn her MA and MFA in English and creative nonfiction writing, respectively. She writes for her blogs and also for snarky Chicago-based website www.CrabbyGoLightly.com. She also enjoys cooking, drinking wine, quoting Christopher Guest films, and snuggling with her cat, Gretta. She blogs at http://sophiaulmer.blogspot.com and http://feckinfranchtoast.blogspot.com
Sam Weller is the author of The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury (William Morrow, 2005) winner of the Society of Midland Authors Award for Best Biography of 2005. He is a contributing writer for the Chicago Public Radio program, 848 and his work has appeared on the National Public Radio program All Things Considered. Sam is a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, as well as Punk Planet magazine. He is the author of Secret Chicago: The Unique Guidebook to Chicago's Hidden Sites, Sounds & Tastes (ECW Press) and his short fiction has appeared in several journals and anthologies. He received his MFA in Fiction from Columbia College Chicago. Sam lives in Chicago with his family.
Elizabeth Yokas earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago, and has taught in the Fiction Writing Department since 1995 and coordinates its Prague Study Program. Her writing has appeared in three volumes of Hair Trigger, the Selected Papers from the Sixth Annual Virginia Woolf Conference, and various journals. Liz is at work on Muthahood: Making a Life in Humboldt Park, about being a mom in a gentrifying neighborhood. She's also wrapping up a novel-in-stories titled After They've Gone. Liz lives in Chicago with her husband, Nick, and their daughter, Connie.
