Cullman Center Institute for Teachers: Time Travel: Writing Memory and the Past with Ayana Mathis

Event Details

Time Travel: Writing Memory and the Past with Ayana Mathis

Backstory has become a dirty word in fiction workshops. At best it's something to be gotten out of the way quickly; at worst it's considered a serious drag on the prose. But this workshop explores backstory as a rich and essential tool. We will examine short fiction by Mavis Gallant, James Salter, and others to see how these writers successfully use memory and the past. Participants will be given brief writing exercises.

Ayana Mathis is the author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, a 2013 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, an NPR Best Book of the Year, and a top selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0.  Mathis's work has been published in The New York Times, The Financial Times, Esquire, and The New Yorker. While at the Cullman Center she is working on a novel about a septuagenarian blues singer and her estranged daughter.

The deadline to apply to this seminar has passed. 

  • Audience: Adults