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Miami Dade College Student Writers Conference 2022 online - friday, May 20, 2022 - 9:30 AM - 4:00 PM

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” ― Toni Morrison

The Third Annual MDC Student Writers Conference 2022 is made possible by the generous donation of The Humanities Edge Grant.

Join us Friday, May 20, 2022 for a series of creative writing workshops and lectures by nationally renowned writers.

The Third Annual MDC Student Writers Conference will be held Friday, May 20, 2022 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM.
Students will have the opportunity to listen to nationally renowned authors, and have a choice of attending two sessions of workshops, mid-morning and early afternoon, all from the convenience of their home.

Attendees are asked to log into plenary sessions and workshops at least five (5) minutes early to allow time to address any technical issues.

Scroll down to view the MDC SWC 2022 Schedule and Presenters.

PLENARY LECTURERS

Plenary I: 9:30-10:15 AM Plenary Session Room

Panel for Home in FloridaShowcasing a variety of voices shaped in and by a place that has been for them a crossroads and a land of contradictions, Home in Florida presents a selection of the best literature of displacement and uprootedness by some of the most talented contemporary Latinx writers who have called Florida home.

This panel will featuring the anthology's editor and author, Anjanette Delgado, along with poets Caridad Moro-Gronlier, Ariel Francisco, and Yaddyra Peralta.

“Shimmering and sharp, lush with laughter and lament, this multifaceted Latinx love letter to Florida reveals worlds within worlds. It teaches readers ‘how’ for us, in the words of one contributor, ‘it’s possible to dance and cry at the same time.’ Indispensable.”—Joy Castro, author of Island of Bones: Essays

Panelists (left to right): Anjanette Delgado, Caridad Moro-Gronlier, Ariel Francisco Henriquez, and Yaddyra Peralta.
Panelists (left to right): Anjanette Delgado, Caridad Moro-Gronlier, Ariel Francisco Henriquez, and Yaddyra Peralta.

Plenary II: 12:30-1:15 PM Plenary Session Room

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide, championing the freedom to write, and recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Their mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible.

This panel will focus on how Human Rights and Freedom of Expression are cornerstones of the PEN American Free Speech Advocacy Institute. MDC students who participated in this program will feature their projects.

Panelists (left to right): Jubi Arriola-Headley (he/him) i(he/him) is a Blacqueer poet, storyteller, a first-generation United Statesian and author of the poetry collection original kink (Sibling Rivalry Press), recipient of the 2021 Housatonic Book Award. He’s a 2018 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, holds an MFA from the University of Miami. Marci Cancio-Bello is the author of Hour of the Ox (University of Pittsburgh, 2016), and the chapbook Last Train to the Midnight Market (Finishing Line Press, 2013). She and E. J. Koh co-translated The World's Lightest Motorcycle by Yi Won (Zephyr Press, 2021). She currently serves as a program coordinator for Miami Book Fair, co-director for PEN America Miami/South Florida Chapter, co-director for the Adoptee Literary Festival, and is a founding member of The Starlings Collective. Nicholas “Niko” Perez is the program manager of free expression and education at PEN America. Perez co-directs the Free Speech Advocacy Institute and hosts Free Speech Live!, a biweekly series of youth-oriented discussions focusing on contemporary issues related to free speech, open exchange, human rights, and democracy.

Plenary III: 3:15-4:00 PM Plenary Session Room

Panel on Speculative Fiction for Dreamers. In a tantalizing array of new works from some of the most exciting Latinx creators working in the speculative vein today, Speculative Fiction for Dreamers extends the project begun with a previous anthology, Latinx Rising (The Ohio State University Press, 2020), to showcase a new generation of writers. Spanning diverse forms, settings, perspectives, and styles, but unified by their drive to imagine new Latinx futures, these stories address the breadth of contemporary Latinx experiences and identities while exuberantly embracing the genre’s ability to entertain and surprise. With new work for new audiences in their teens and up, and especially for Latinx people navigating their identities in the ever-shifting, sometimes perilous, but always promising cultural landscape of the US, this book is for dreamers—and DREAMers—everywhere.

“An outstanding showcase of contemporary Latinx authors exploring identity through the conventions of sci-fi, fantasy, and magical realism. Themes of family, migration, and community resonate throughout these 38 masterful stories. … This is a knockout.” —Publishers Weekly

Panelist (left to right): Matthew David Goodwin (co-editor/writer); Stephanie Pitsirilos (writer); Patrick Lugo (writer/illustrator); and, co-editor Alex Hernandez Director of Learning Resources at MDC Hialeah Campus.
Panelist (left to right): Matthew David Goodwin (co-editor/writer); Stephanie Pitsirilos (writer); Patrick Lugo (writer/illustrator); and, co-editor Alex Hernandez Director of Learning Resources at MDC Hialeah Campus.

WORKSHOPS

Participants will be able to attend the following workshops.

Session A

10:30 to 12:00 PM

Workshop 1A: "Writing Protest" with Anjanette Delgado

What does protest have to do with writing, with literature? In this workshop led by award-winning author Anjanette Delgado, we will learn how to excavate our voices out from under the most potent censorship: our own.

Every writer must find the source of those stories (irrespective of genre) that they, and only they, can tell. But we spend our lives hiding from precisely the things that would allow us to write our truths, to know our minds, to understand our sorrows. We exhaust ourselves litigating and relitigating the past internally instead of risking something by speaking out.

To be fair, we are taught to hide (especially if we are somehow deemed as "other:" women, black or otherwise a person of color, poor, disabled). We are taught to self-censor: "Don't be a whiner." "You're so dramatic." "There you go again, playing the (take your pick) card." So we don't protest. At least not publicly, and never when it's personal, because, what good can come of it? Or so we think. The result is inauthentic writing. Less powerful writing. A silencing of sorts with grave consequences for art in general, and literature in particular.

In this class, we will learn how to excavate our voices out from under the most potent censorship: our own. We will learn how to excavate using a powerful method capable of changing our writing DNA, of self-generating courage so we can begin to write the stories we were meant to write, to make our mark in the world in the way our heart desires.

Anjanette Delgado is a Puerto Rican writer and journalist based in Miami. The award-winning author of the novels The Heartbreak Pill and The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho, she has written for the New York Times’ “Modern Love” column, Vogue, NPR, HBO, Kenyon Review, Pleiades, the Hong Kong Review, and others. She is the editor of Home in Florida: Latinx Writers and the Literature of Uprootedness (University of Florida Press, 2021).

A Bread Loaf Conference Alumni, she won an Emmy Award for her feature writing in 1994 for Madres en la lejanía, a human-interest series about Latin American mothers who left their own children behind to work as nannies in the United States. She has taught journalistic ethics in Latin America for the UN's UNDP initiative, and literature at FIU, and at the Center for Literature cofounded by the Miami International Book Fair, among others.

Session 2A - "Word Bank: Building a Wealth of Creativity One Word at a Time" with Caridad Moro-Gronlier
Building vocabulary is an important skill for any writer . This workshop will show participants how to write a poem or flash fiction by creating a guided word bank of their own creation in order to interweave individual obsessions, distinct themes, personal interests and/or context into a singular piece of writing.

Caridad Moro-Gronlier was born in Los Angeles, California to Cuban immigrant parents who relocated to Miami, Florida in 1977. The recipient of an MA in English Literature from FIU, Moro-Gronlier is the author of Tortillera: Poems, winner of the TRP Southern Poetry Breakthrough Prize published by Texas Review Press (2021) and the chapbook Visionware, published by Finishing Line Press as part of its New Women's Voices Series. She is also a Contributing Editor for Grabbed: Poets and Writers Respond to Sexual Assault, Empowerment & Healing (Beacon Press, 2020) and an Associate Editor for "SWWIM Every Day", an online daily poetry journal for women identifying poets.

Moro-Gronlier received an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in poetry, and a finalist for the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize and the Hudson Prize from Black Lawrence Press. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net and the Lambda Literary Award.

Session 3A - "Write Brain / Making a Scene" Screenwriting with David Schroeder

At 18, a paralyzing spinal cord injury began a long accomplished journey beginning at the University of Miami where David Schroeder wrote his thesis under the direction of Nobel Laureate, I.B. Singer and earned a M.A. in American Literature. Immediately after, he took a position at Miami-Dade College, where presently, he is a full professor teaching composition, creative writing and screenwriting. In 2001, he received the Peter H. Clayton Endowed Teaching Chair for teaching excellence.

Actor Jon Voight presented Schroeder the Golden Palm Award at the 2013 Beverly Hills Film Festival "… to a screenwriter that possesses extraordinary writing ability and a deep understanding of structure, premise, characters, and dialogue. We want to feel the heart of the story beating…, and feel so compelled with the story that it’s virtually impossible to stop reading it." His scripts have won ‘Best Screenplay’ 66 times. The short film, THIS MODERN MAN IS BEAT, was produced and screen written by Schroeder, and has won 110 Best Film Awards.

Session B

1:30 to 3:00 PM

Session 1B - "Telling Your Story: Using Comics to Get That Idea Across" with Juan Navarro
Comic-creator Juan Navarro will discuss the history and process of creating narratives in the medium of the graphic novel. Students will also work on an original creation in the workshop.

Juan Navarro was born and raised in Hialeah (agua, fango y factoría), Juan Navarro is basically a fan boy. Except this fan boy doesn't collect other people's art, he creates it. Navarro grew up "fueled by a steady diet of comic books and Heavy Metal" and took turns attending and getting expelled from several magnet schools. When he tired of that, he graduated from PAVAC (Performing and Visual Arts center) at Miami Northwestern Senior High. He remembers this time of his life fondly, "Nothing was more awesome than Miami with a free metropass at 15, during the early 1990s. It was insane." After all that knocking around, he decided he might as well earn a BFA too. Navarro juggles writing, creating comic books, and drawing and painting. He is the creator and artist of Zombie Years, a web comic series and a founding member of graphicsmash.com for which he creates Vigil, a superhero comic book based in the 305. You'd think that might keep him busy enough, but no. He's also helped put together Steampunk Magazine, co-directs the CS Gallery, is editor-in-chief of Creature Entertainment, and is the art director for the Oliva Cigar Company.

Session 2B - "Portals Into Language" with Ariel Henriquez
As poets, language is both our inspiration and our medium, what we consume in order to create, what gets filtered through our creative imaginations and becomes uniquely our own. But what happens when we read and break down poems that come from elsewhere, that arrive into English from different languages and countries and cultures? How does a poem written in a completely different language with different rules and traditions break open our understanding of English, and how can we use that to forge new paths in our own writing, create new doors into new imaginations?

Ariel Francisco Henriquez is the author of _____________________________.

Ariel Francisco Henriquez Cos is the author of Under Capitalism If Your Head Aches They Just Yank Off Your Head (Flowersong Press, 2021), A Sinking Ship is Still a Ship (Burrow Press, 2020), All My Heroes Are Broke (C&R Press, 2017) which was named one of the 8 Best Latino Books of 2017 by Rigoberto Gonzalez, and Before Snowfall, After Rain (Glass Poetry Press, 2016).

Born in the Bronx to Dominican and Guatemalan parents, he was raised in Miami and completed his MFA in Poetry at Florida International University and an MFA in Literary Translation at Queens College CUNY. He was named one of the Five Florida Writers to Watch in 2019 by The Miami New Times and one of the 6 Guatemalan Authors You Should Know in 2021 by the Latino Book Review. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Yorker Podcast, The Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day, The Rumpus, The New York City Ballet, Performance Today, American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. His first translation collection, Carolina Sanchez’s Viaje/Voyage (Editorial Ultramarina, 2020) was just published in Spain. He is an Assistant Professor of Poetry at Louisiana State University.

Session 3B - "Branching Paths: Where Writing Can Take You" with Lynne Barrett

“But is it practical?” Students often say they are asked this by others who have some image of the lone writer scribbling with pen and ink in a garret, starving. The truth is, writing classes are starting points where you develop skills and experience that lead on to many career paths with branches expected and unexpected, today more than ever before. In this workshop we’ll look at ways that working with language, images, memory, description, character, and storytelling, combined with reading, listening, collaborating, revising, and editing, provide the first steps to rewarding work across a great variety of fields.

Lynne Barrett is the author of Magpies (gold medal, Florida Book Awards) and editor of Making Good Time, True Stories of How We Do, and Don’t, Get Around in South Florida. Her recent short fiction and nonfiction can be found in Rivanna Review, Orange Blossom Review, New Flash Fiction Review, 50-Word Story, The Hong Kong Review, Mystery Tribune, and One Year to a Writing Life. She teaches creative writing at Florida International University.

The conference is free to you, and if you are interested in attending, please complete the form below:

If questions or concerns, please contact:

Prof. Omar Figueras at ofiguera@mdc.edu or

Prof. Victor Calderin at vcalderi@mdc.edu

Thank you for your interest in the MDC SWC. See you there!

Credits:

Created with images by Mike Tinnion - "The amount of times I have tried to find a decent photo of a blank sketch book is too many. So I decided to create a few, starting with this one." • Nick Morrison - "Laptop and notepad" • Angelina Litvin - "Pencil shavings on a notebook" • fotografierende - "Stay creative"