There are times when we find that the hardest experiences to talk about are ours. We may come up against brief moments of articulation in songs, poems and conversations, but if you are as moved by memory and the need to express the inexpressible as a lot of us are, this workshop is for you. Here we will focus on the invention and molding of thought about our peculiar experiences. We will look at reflecting, structuring, and expanding our perspectives, as well as revising existing drafts in order to enhance effect for readers. The aim is to meet you at whatever level you are. As long as you are convinced that you have a story to share with the universe, then you are welcome to a workshop that will help you connect ideas with memory and the bounty of personal experiences which make you unique. There will be weekly readings, discussions, writing sessions and peer workshops for the duration of our time together. I look forward to working with you.
Onyinye Ihezukwu was born in Nigeria where she worked as a broadcaster and journalist. Before broadcasting, she worked with an independent theater enterprise, The Tapshak Company, as an actress, project director, and playwright. Her fiction largely explores changing socio-spiritual themes in the urban Nigerian setting. Her fiction has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, the Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Scholar, the St. Petersburg Review, among others. She received her MFA in 2014 from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, where she was awarded the Poe/Faulkner Fellowship, as well as the 2014 Henfield Prize for fiction. She held a 2015-2017 Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and is currently earning a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Houston. She’s at work on a novel.