Upcoming Kundiman Events:
Writing into mixedness with Kristiana Kahakauwila
May 2nd—June 27th, 2022
MonDAYS, 7:00 PM–9:30 PM ET
For anyone looking to explore different facets of mixedness, this workshop offers specific craft techniques that encourage and celebrate writing into various kinds of plurality. Often fiction techniques such as plotline or third person subjective point of view emphasize the false notion that singularity is the writer’s best (or only) friend. But for a writer who wants to write into layered identities, liminal spaces, and/or community narratives, a different set of tools is needed. In the first half of this 8-week course we will examine short fiction that employs innovative forms, structures, and lesser-used points of view to inspire our own explorations and representations of mixedness.
In the second half of the class, we will learn methods for identifying and amplifying harmonies within our own work as we develop one complete short story or novel chapter. Authors whose work we’ll study include Thomas King, Julie Otsuka, Toni Morrison, Randa Jarrar, Carmen Maria Machado, Ross Gay, Louise Erdrich, and Peter Ho Davies. Class time will be devoted to a mix of reading analysis, focused lessons on specific techniques, free writing to tailored prompts, and conversation around our writing and writing goals. Each participant will also share their work in one formal workshop setting.
This class will not meet on Memorial Day (Monday, May 30th).
eligibility:
This workshop is open to all writers of color, and students must be able to attend all 8 sessions of the workshop. The non-refundable tuition fee is $495. This workshop will be held over Zoom. There is one scholarship spot available, and the applications are open through April 11th.
Registration for this class is now closed.
FACULTY:
Kristiana Kahakauwila is a hapa writer of kanaka maoli (Native Hawaiian), German and Norwegian descent. Her first book, This is Paradise: Stories (Hogarth 2013), takes as its heart the people and landscapes of contemporary Hawai'i and was named a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. Recent essays and stories have appeared in Kartika Review, Hunger Mountain, Bamboo Ridge, and Red Ink, among others. Kristiana earned a BA in Comparative Literature from Princeton University and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan. She was a 2015-16 Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study and is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She also teaches in the Low-Residency MFA at the Institute of American Indian Art (IAIA) in Santa Fe.