Shut Up & ‘Speak’: Ways to shut down the noise and write your next best thing
A MASTER CLASS WITH JAMI ATTENBERG
Greedy Reads – Remington
320 W 29th Street
Baltimore, MD 21211
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Registration is required.
Please register here:
https://citylitproject.salsalabs.org/clf24master
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What does it take to lead a creative life every day? New York Times bestselling author Jami Attenberg offers a workshop on how to carve out a creative life for yourself. The author of seven novels and the 2022 memoir I Came All This Way To Meet You, as well as the new motivational creativity book 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round, Jami is a “writer’s writer,” with decades of experience in pursuit of a creative life.
This workshop will share ideas and perspectives for putting your own creativity first: How can writers best serve their own creative processes? Where do you go for inspiration? How important is community to our writing lives? And how can you create a life in this business of art? It will include a talk, a writing prompt with a group write-along. Jami will share how the #1000wordsofsummer became a worldwide literary movement in a collaborative environment.
Her wildly popular, grassroots movement inspired the 1000 Words collection, the book-length extension of it, about becoming and staying motivated, discovering yourself and your creative desires, and approaching your craft from a new direction. It features advice from more than fifty well-known writers, including New York Times bestsellers, Pulitzer Prize winners, and stars of the literary world, such as Roxane Gay, Lauren Groff, Celeste Ng, Meg Wolitzer, and Carmen Maria Machado. Paired with vibrant word art illustrations, 1000 Words is an accessible and motivational craft book that allows you to open any page and get a quick and fulfilling hit of inspiration.
CityLit Festival offers this Master Class giving attendees 90 minutes to engage with a celebrated author about writing. Meaningful discussions about craft combined with a lecture, Q & A, exercises, and handouts are provided by some of the greatest authors of our time. Past presenting authors include Kiese Laymon, George Saunders, Susan Straight, Dinaw Mengestu, Kia Corthron, and Yrsa Daley-Ward. They have all graced our stage in virtual and live platforms.
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JAMI ATTENBERG is the author of eight books of fiction, including: A Reason To See You Again, Instant Love, The Kept Man, The Melting Season, The Middlesteins, Saint Mazie, and All Grown Up. Her most recent novel is All This Could Be Yours (2019), which was included on the Best of Fall lists from People, Vogue, USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, New York, Observer, Bust, Nylon, New York Post, Pop Sugar, and more. The author of 1000 Words, of which this master class is based, garnered 30,000 followers. The book includes thoughts on the creative lifecycle and the craft and art of writing, and original letters of advice and support from dozens of authors.
Attenberg’s memoir I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home (2022), a brilliant, fierce, and funny memoir of transformation. Attenberg—described as a “master of modern fiction” by Entertainment Weekly and the “poet laureate of difficult families” by Kirkus Reviews—reveals the defining moments that pushed her to create a life, and voice, she could claim for herself. What does it take to devote oneself to art? What does it mean to own one’s ideas? What does the world look like for a woman moving solo through it?
Exploring themes of friendship, independence, class, and drive, I Came All This Way to Meet You is an inspiring story of finding one’s way home—emotionally, artistically, and physically—and an examination of art and individuality that will resonate with anyone determined to listen to their own creative calling.
All This Could Be Yours is populated by Attenberg’s pitch-perfect characters; flawed, recognizable people dealing with big topics–death, family, sex, love–and Attenberg handles it all with an expert touch and a keen sense of what, despite all the sadness and secrets, keeps people connected, striving for moments of beauty and tenderness in a dark world.”
Attenberg has written about food, travel, books, relationships and urban life for The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, the Sunday Times, Slate, and others. Her work has been published in a total of sixteen languages.
Her forthcoming work A Reason to See You Again, due out this September, is a kaleidoscopic journey and the ever-evolving ways we communicate with one another, and the many unexpected forms that love can take. She lives in New Orleans, LA.
What’s been said about Attenberg’s work:
“Jami Attenberg is undoubtedly a writer’s writer and a phenomenal talent. There is so much beauty in her craft; a tenderness present even on the sentence level. A compelling literary treasure, Attenberg is a real wonder.” —Kristen Arnett
“Prickly and unsentimental, but never quite hopeless, Attenberg. the poet laureate of dif icult families, captures the relentlessly lonely beauty of being alive.” —Kirkus, starred review
“Reading Jami Attenberg is like hanging out with a friend who encourages you— through their own example—to be your messy, vibrant, glorious self. Attenberg’s voice is equal parts wise auntie and wise-ass, whether on social media or in any of her seven increasingly well-received novels. — BookPage (Starred)
https://www.jamiattenberg.com/
Twitter: @jamiattenberg
Instagram: @jamiattenberg
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CityLit Project and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in partnership with Chesapeake Shakespeare Company present CityLit Festival: Dismantling the Culture of Silence. This celebration of the arts showcases a bevy of leading poets and writers on April 20, 2024. We’re talking fiction, nonfiction, poetry galore, and ways to up the ante on your craft.
Download the CityLit Festival: Dismantling the Culture of Silence flyer.