Muse & the Marketplace 2018

Our present may be a moving target, but the debates and injustices we face today have deep roots in history. What can the lives of our ancestors teach us? What research methods are the most useful? What are the ethical concerns involved in telling the stories of others? What debts do we owe to the dead? Who are we answerable to in the present? 

In this discussion and guided writing class, we will examine the different techniques and methods used to create vivid stories set in the past. We will focus on writers who reconstruct, reexamine and, often, rewrite the past in order to speak to urgent concerns of the present. After a discussion of examples, we will segue into writing prompts for accessing the past in expansive and generative ways, with an aim toward writing a deeper understanding of our current times.