Class

Abolitionist Fiction

This class is intended for systemically marginalized people, including people of color and transgender, disabled, or working class people of any racial identity. Abolition is about addressing the roots of social problems, restoring relationships between people and communities, and practicing life-affirming ways of meeting people’s needs. With these principles in mind, participants will be invited to write a series of excerpts over the course of six weeks, structured in three “units,” and each dedicated to one of the aforementioned abolitionist principles.

Each session we will critically discuss aspects of fiction writing, intersected with abolition principles, have in-class writing time with prompts related to creative process, and workshop each other’s stories at the end of each unit. (By “workshop,” we mean reading a story written by a classmate and critically discussing their craft decisions, as a way of offering feedback for improving the writing of everyone involved.) We will read contemporary abolitionist stories such as Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler and Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez, to learn how marginalized authors use craft elements to imagine liberatory worlds, or better understand oppressive ones.

Please obtain the following books for class: Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler, and Olga Dies Dreaming, by Xochitl Gonzalez.

This class takes place in-person, at the Loft at Open Book; we encourage participants to be fully vaccinated and masked in the interest of everyone’s safety. Please see the Loft’s website for the most up to date information about the Loft’s COVID policies.