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Featuring:
“This Really Happened: Turning Fact into Fiction” with Leslie Pietrzyk (author of story collection Admit This to No One)
While many writers bravely use their life experiences in their work, some of us (understandably!) are nervous about doing so. What benefits and drawbacks are there to “this really happened”? These tips and strategies will help you successfully navigate your life onto the page, in whatever your chosen genre is.
“Writing Violence - When It's Better Not to” with Cherie Jones (debut novelist of How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House)
Writing about violence can lend excitement to a narrative, but what are the alternatives to graphic depictions of gore? When should we use those alternatives, and why? In this session, Cherie shares her tips on writing violence responsibly, and why some things might be better left unsaid.
This online (Zoom) event is FREE, but attendees must pre-register. Click below to sign-up and receive a Zoom link!
ASL interpretation will be available for attendees.
With support from the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts, CityLit Studio is designed to center writers by engaging in a two-hour, craft intensive with these award-winning authors.
The signature event exemplifies CityLit’s ongoing commitment to attract premier literary talent, offer free events, elevate inclusive voices, provide access to superior instruction on craft while bridging a community of emerging and established literary talent. The writer-to-writer exchange includes a reading, key aspects of craft instruction to improve writing, an open Q & A session with handouts available to attendees, and the importance of finding artistic communities.
Past Studio artists include: Sheri Booker, Jen Grow, Derrick Weston Brown, Jocquelyn Downs, Danielle Evans, Donna Hemans, Eugenia Kim, Maurice Carlos Ruffin David Yezzi, and 2019 National Book Award finalist Carmen Giminez Smith, who learned she was a finalist days before the event.
Leslie Pietrzyk’s collection of linked stories set in DC, Admit This to No One, is forthcoming in November 2021 from Unnamed Press, the publisher of her 2018 novel Silver Girl, which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Her first collection of short stories, This Angel on My Chest, won the 2015 Drue Heinz Literature Prize and was published by University of Pittsburgh Press. Short fiction and essays have appeared in, among others, Ploughshares, Story Magazine, The Hudson Review, Southern Review, Arts & Letters, Shenandoah, The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, Washingtonian, The Sun, Salon, and The Washington Post Magazine. Awards include a Pushcart Prize in 2020 and the 2020 Creative Arts Prize from the Polish American Historical Association. Organizations awarding fellowships include the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, Virginia Center for the Arts, and Hawthornden International Retreat at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland.
Cherie Jones is a Barbadian writer, mother and lawyer. Her short fiction has variously been published in PANK, Eclectica, Reflex Fiction, and The Feminist Wire and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Cherie is a graduate of the MA Writing programme at Sheffield Hallam University, where she was awarded the Archie Markham Award and the AM Heath Prize. She is also a past fellowship awardee of the Vermont Studio Centre. Her first novel How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2021.
Free Fall Baltimore would not be possible without our generous supporters.
The Free Fall Baltimore Program is made possible by the Baltimore Office of Promotion & the Arts (BOPA). Free Fall 2021 is presented by BGE with the generous support of Atapco Properties, the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) and Reyka Vodka.
CityLit Studio VI, part of Free Fall Baltimore
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
7:00 PM EDT - 9:00 PM EDT
Need help? Contact
Please consider donating to our October goal! CityLit Project programs serve various audiences to encourage and support a life-long love of literature. Since its inception, CityLit Project has presented 350 programs involving more than 1,000 literary artists and serving nearly 14,000 people (including 450 youth).
CityLit Studio VI, part of Free Fall Baltimore
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
7:00 PM EDT - 9:00 PM EDT