In this workshop we will explore the art and necessity of exploring virtue and villainy in our writings about home. We will do reading and writing exercises that ask us to consider not simply the harm we might have experienced at home, but the harm we might have caused? How does writing through virtue and villainy with particularity make narrative discovery possible? We will also explore the importance of revision in writing about home. Writers of all levels should come ready to explore senses they don't typically write through.

Last year our Master Class with George Saunders proved more had access to the wealth of information our authors declared in a virtual space. We listened and learned, and offer you one of America’s brightest literary stars in Kiese Laymon.

Kiese Laymon is a Black, southern writer from Mississippi, the author of the genre-bending novel Long Division and the essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. His bestselling memoir Heavy: An American Memoir was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. From Heavy, “For the first time in my life, I realized telling the truth was way different from finding the truth, and finding the truth had everything to do with revisiting and rearranging words. Revisiting and rearranging words didn’t only require vocabulary; it required will, and maybe courage. Revised word patterns were revised thought patterns. Revised thought patterns shaped memory. I knew, looking at all those words, that memories were there, I just had to rearrange, add, subtract, sit, and sift until I found a way to free the memory.” 

Tickets are $10 and limited. The event is open to all. Registration is required. You will receive a Zoom link upon registration.

ASL interpretation will be available for attendees.

You can order the author's books from The Ivy Bookshop.

19th Annual CityLit Festival Partners:

Media Sponsor: BMoreArt Magazine

Enoch Pratt Free Library | Maryland Centers for Creative Classrooms | Arts Education in Maryland Schools

Maryland Humanities | Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance | Motor House | Busboys and Poets -Baltimore

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