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Writing and Activism with Apogee Journal: How do we become socially responsible writers?


Recent events have shown us that we are still a long way from achieving equal rights for all people in America. Many of us want to write “politically”—for example, write work that responds to the events in Ferguson, Missouri, or Staten Island, New York last summer, or injustices that are occurring in the fields of women’s rights, healthcare and migration. How can we as writers approach political subjects that we might not have first hand experience in? How can we develop the language and tools to identify power structures, abuses of privilege, and “blind spots” in our writing and the writing we read? “Writing and Activism” is a workshop led by the editors of Apogee Journal, a literary-activist journal that works to highlight unheard voices and voices marginalized from mainstream literature. This workshop will have both critical discussion elements and writing exercises, involving a reading of literary texts followed by directed, critical discussion on ways to dissect topics like race, gender, class, and sexuality in literature, and written exercises exploring these subjects through narrative, voice, point of view, and topic choice. The workshop, in keeping with the Hudson Valley Writers Center’s mission, will be open to writers and readers at all levels.

Saturday, 2/28/2015, 12-4 p.m.

Alexandra Watson is the Managing Editor of Apogee Journal. She holds a BA in English and Literary Arts from Brown University and is pursuing an MFA in Fiction. She holds a teaching fellowship in Columbia’s University Writing Program.

Melody Nixon is Editor at Large at Apogee Journal. She is a New Zealand-born writer living in New York City. Her essays, criticism and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Conjunctions,Midnight Breakfast, No, Dear, Hoax Publication, Bloom and The Appendix, among others. She is the Interviews Editor ofThe Common and co-curator of The First Person Plural Reading Series–Harlem. Melody is an activist for LGBTQ, women’s, and migrant rights. She has provided front line abortion clinic defense in the Bronx, taught an introductory “Artivism” class at Columbia University, and is currently a creative writing workshop leader for the New York Writers Coalition. Melody is Co-Founder and Editor-at-Large of Apogee.

Register at https://writerscenter.org/courses/writing-activism-workshop-apogee-journal

Event Location and Ticket Information

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HVWC in Sleepy Hollow
300 Riverside Drive
Sleepy Hollow, New York 10591
Handicap Accessible? Yes

Date: Saturday, February 28, 2015
Times: 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm

Ticket pricing:

Get tickets now
$175 - Members
$200 - Non-Members

Presenter: Alexandra Watson, Melody Nixon
Presenter Phone: (914) 332-5953