Upcoming Kundiman Events:
What is Character
with Vu Tran
Saturday, July 10th
3:00 PM–6:00 PM ET
“The world you create in your fiction will only be convincing and compelling if the characters are convincing and compelling. A character who is cliché is cliché […] because they have no depth and aren’t convincing in the world you’ve created for them.”
–– Vu Tran, Electric Literature: “A Convincing and Compelling World: An Interview with Vu Tran, Author of Dragonfish”
What is character and what is a character? How we answer this depends on not only the kind of writer we are but also the kind of person. It requires a sustained inquiry into who we think we are and how we think we see the world around us, even when our characters are nothing like us.
In this 3-hour craft class, as we consider ways of creating dynamic and effective characters in our writing, we will explore the deeper questions inherent in this process: What makes such a character human, convincing, and unique, and what does it actually mean to be any of those things? Even as the forces of history and society create so much difference among us, what ultimately continues to fascinate and mystify us about each other?
This class will be recorded and sent out to all registered participants the following week.
eligibility:
This craft class is open to all writers of color. The non-refundable tuition fee is $50. This class will be held over Zoom. There are scholarship spots available, and applications are open through Thursday, June 24th.
Registration for this class is now closed.
FACULTY:
Vu Tran was born in Vietnam and raised in Oklahoma. His first novel, Dragonfish, was a NY Times Notable Book and a San Francisco Chronicle Best Books of the Year. He is the recipient of a Whiting Award and an NEA Fellowship, and his short fiction has appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories, the Best American Mystery Stories, and other publications. He received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and his PhD from the Black Mountain Institute in Las Vegas. He is currently a criticism columnist for the Virginia Quarterly Review and an Assistant Professor of Practice in English and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago.