Two truths and a lie: creative nonfiction February 4, 2008

a 10-week writing workshop with Bushra Rehman

All ten sessions meet Mondays, 7 - 9pm, at KSW's space180, 180 Capp Street, @17th Street, San Francisco. The workshop will not meet on Monday, February 19th, 2007.

Please note: all multi-session KSW workshops include a public reading and chapbook publication following the final workshop session, coordinated and scheduled by KSW with the workshop participants.

Class Description:
Writing from life can be a tricky business. There are people to protect, faulty memories of events, and the pitfalls of self-censorship and self-aggrandizement. This is where creative non-fiction comes in. It’s a form of writing that is drawn from real life, but employs techniques of poetry and fiction. Permission is given to veer from the facts, to change names and the order of happenings, to start with a true story and end it the way it should have ended. Creative non-fiction recognizes that our lives are too rich not to write about, but that our imaginations are too strong to ignore.

In this class, we will write by drawing on memory, family myth, and the truth and lies of our lives. We will cover literary techniques such as character, dialogue, setting and story arc, as well as performance. We as a collective will give ourselves permission not only to share our life stories, but to re-write them into the stories we want them to be.



About the instructor:
Bushra Rehman’s mother says Bushra was born in an ambulance flying through the streets of Brooklyn. Her father is not so sure. Since there are no definitive records of the time of her birth, there is no real way of knowing, but it would explain a few things. Bushra is a vagabond poet who traveled for years with nothing more than a greyhound ticket and a book bag full of poems. Now, she performs her poetry regularly in theaters and colleges around the country. Lately, she’s been spending her time flying through the streets of Oakland and Brooklyn, writing an on the road adventure novel for Muslim girls.

Bushra is co-editor of the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism (Seal Press, 2002) which has been adopted as essential reading material in women’s studies and ethnic studies classes around the United States. She has been featured in The New York Times and NY Newsday and her work has appeared in ColorLines, Mizna, Curve, SAMAR, and Bottomfish. Her writing is forthcoming in Writing the Lines of Our Hands: An Anthology of South Asian American Poetry (Creative Arts Press), Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith and Sexuality (Seal Press)and Stories of Illness and Healing: Women Write Their Bodies (Kent State University Press).

Registration fee is $215 regular, $195 for KSW members. Class is capped at 14 registrants; first come, first serve basis. To register with credit card, please click on one of the buttons below. To register by check, please send a check or money order for full amount to KSW, 180 capp street #5, san francisco, ca 94110, and include your full name and contact info:

General workshop registration (non-KSW members):

KSW member workshop registration:
contact Samantha Chanse at 415.503.0520 or sam@kearnystreet.org for more information.

Kearny Street Workshop is a community-based arts nonprofit based in San Francisco. Founded in 1972, KSW's mission is to produce and present art that enriches and empowers Asian Pacific American communities. Our vision is to achieve a more just society by connecting APA artists to community members to give voice to our cultural, historical, and contemporary issues. KSW offers workshops, visual exhibitions, readings, artist salons and panel discussions, an annual arts festival, and more. For more information, please visit www.kearnystreet.org

Official Website: http://kearnystreet.org