Speaker for the Dead – Persona Poetry Workshop Instructor: Anders Carlson-Wee
When: Saturday, September 30, 12-2pm Where: Midwest Writing Center (RIPL, 401 19th St. Rock Island, IL 61201) Cost: $10 MWC Members, $15 for non-MWC Members, free for high school/college students and two-day ticket holders for the All Sense Festival (while spaces are available)
Midwest Writing Center is thrilled to welcome NEA Poetry Fellow Anders Carlson-Wee to teach a persona poetry workshop on September 30. Carlson-Wee will be reading at the All Senses Festival on Friday, September 29, and will be leading this workshop at MWC the following morning.
What’s more–thanks to the support of Dr. Robin Throne and the Regional Development Authority, we are able to offer this workshop at a discount to the community, and free to high school and college students! This workshop is also free to anyone who purchases two-day passes to the All Senses Festival, while spaces are available.
There are a limited number of spaces available for this workshop, and they will be filled on a first-come, first-serve basis. Here’s a complete description: “Tired of being yourself? Want to get inside a character’s head, or write a poem in another’s voice? This class is about persona: writing in voices other than our own. In this two-hour course, we will invent our own personas and deepen them through writing exercises and games. We will engage in guided free-writing exercises to explore inhabiting our character’s personalities; we will use our work to discuss voice, humor, psychology, timing, agenda, and the power of empathy. We will have some laughs. We will give voice to the dead.” Please contact Ryan Collins at MWC to register or for more information about this workshop. For complete information and online registration, please visit the page on the MWC website: http://www.mwcqc.org/speaker-for-the-dead/
Bio for Anders Carlson-Wee:
Anders Carlson-Wee is a 2015 NEA Creative Writing Fellow and the author of Dynamite, winner of the 2015 Frost Place Chapbook Prize. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, New England Review, The Sun, AGNI, Poetry Daily, Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, The Missouri Review, Best New Poets, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and Narrative Magazine, which also featured him on its “30 Below 30” list of young writers to watch. Winner of Ninth Letter’s Poetry Award, Blue Mesa Review’s Poetry Prize, and New Delta Review’s Editors’ Choice Prize, he was runner-up for the 2016 Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Prize. His work has been translated into Chinese. He lives in Minneapolis, where he serves as a McKnight Foundation Creative Writing Fellow.
This workshop is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Regional Development Authority, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, and Dr. Robin Throne, in memory of Lanny “Steve” Biehler and Lyle Ernst.
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