Experimental Writing for Non-Experimental Writers with Porochista Khakpour

4-Day Workshop
Wednesday – Saturday, May 8 – 11 | 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

What does it mean for writing to be experimental? The great writer Margaret Atwood defines it as writing “that sets up certain rules for itself . . . while subverting the conventions according to which readers have understood what constitutes a proper work of literature.” In making its own rules, a lot of the old rules have to be tossed out, of course, and so this workshop provides a few examples of the most innovative, rule-busting, eclectic works of the postmodern, absurdist, metafictional and transgressive canon. We’ll look at a wild and gutsy array of passages, old and new, that dare to be different. We’ll also generate multi-genre experimental writing of our own through a series of exercises.

Porochista Khakpour is the author of three critically acclaimed books, most recently Sick (HarperCollins, 2018), which Kirkus Review praised as “lucid, eloquent, and unflinchingly honest, Khakpour’s book is not just about a woman’s relationship to illness, but also a remarkably trenchant reflection on personal and human frailty. A courageously intimate memoir about living within a body that has “never felt at ease.”  Sick was named one of the most anticipated books of 2018 by the Boston Globe, Buzzfeed, Nylon, Electric Literature,, Huffington Post, Bitch, The Milions, The Rumpus, Autostraddle and others. She was called one of Dazed’s “Top American Writers You need to be Reading,” and Open Road Media’s “10 Amazing Female Novelists Under 50.” Her debut novel Sons and Other Flammable Objects (Grove Press, 2008) was a New York Times Editor’s Choice, one of the Chicago Tribune’s Fall’s Best, and the 2007 California Book Award winner in the “First Fiction” category. Her second novel, The Last Illusion (Bloomsbury, 2014) was named a 2014 “Best Book of the Year” by NPR, Kirkus, Buzzfeed, Popmatters, Electric Literature and many more. Among her many fellowships is a National Endowment for the Arts award. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Elle, Slate, Salon, and Bookforum, among many others. Currently, she is guest faculty member at Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) and Stonecoast’s MFA programs, as well as Contributing Editor at The Evergreen Review. She had presented at book festivals here and overseas, and served as a judge for various literary awards. Born in Tehran and raised in the Los Angeles area, she lives in New York City’s Harlem.