2023 Summer Workshops
How did you come to writing? Or, how did writing come to you? And why do you continue to write? During this time of great collective uncertainty and upheaval, it may be difficult to know what role writing has, for those of us starting out on this path as well as for those of us who have been writers for many years. No writing to be submitted in advance, as this is a generative workshop. During our time together, we’ll explore a range of ways to re-entangle with our boldest, unruliest writing dreams/hungers/questions. Work by Jennifer S. Cheng, Aracelis Girmay, Hélène Cixous, Sean Thomas Dougherty, Bhanu Kapil, and others will be our luminous guides as we dive deep into experiments with language and aliveness.
Biography
Chen Chen is the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, the GLCA New Writers Award, and the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry. The collection was also a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry and named one of the best of 2017 by The Brooklyn Rail, Entropy, Library Journal, and others. His work has appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Tin House, Poem-a-Day, The Best American Poetry, Bettering American Poetry, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading. Chen earned his MFA from Syracuse University and is pursuing a PhD in English and Creative Writing as an off-site Texas Tech University student. He lives in frequently snowy Rochester, NY with his partner, Jeff Gilbert and their pug dog, Mr. Rupert Giles. Chen is the 2018-2020 Jacob Ziskind Poet-in-Residence at Brandeis University.