Fall Craft Intensive: Jami Nakamura Lin
Workshops
$75.00
Description
Editor's Note
Style, Structure, and Self-Accommodation with Jami Nakamura Lin
Saturday, December 6
8 AM – 11 AM PST/ 11 AM – 2 PM EST
Online
Those of us who identify as neurodivergent, live with chronic fatigue or other symptoms, and/or have a psychiatric disability/mental illness often have to adapt our writing schedule and process to fit our specific needs. Yet we don’t always think about how our contexts affect our writing craft itself, as most craft advice is tailored towards neurotypical writers. In this class, we’ll experiment with harnessing craft choices to a) create a more supportive and accessible atmosphere for ourselves on the page and b) reveal our own unique thinking processes and embodiment.
Among other things, we’ll think about how our day-to-day needs could potentially translate to the page (could certain structures be more sensory-supportive than others?), how our style might change when we’re in different psychological/emotional states (how does fatigue show up in our syntax?), and how we can use craft to utilize our strengths and needs.
In this class, we will read disabled writers and thinkers (including Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Mia Mingus, V. Jo Hsu, and the collective work of Sins Invalid), complete and share in-class writing exercises, and do a whole lot of discussion–learning from and alongside one another. Our goal in this class is not to accommodate in order to strive for/assimilate into neurotypical narratives, but to create alternative possibilities.
Scholarship
We have one scholarship available for this intensive. Scholarships are conducted through a lottery. If you are interested in submitting your name, please fill out this form.
BIO: Jami Nakamura Lin is the author of the illustrated speculative memoir The Night Parade (Mariner Books/HarperCollins), named a Best Book of 2023 by Boston Globe and Vulture. A former Catapult columnist, she’s been published in The New York Times, Sewanee Review, Passages North, and other publications. She has received fellowships and support from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, Yaddo, Macdowell, Sewanee Writers Conference, We Need Diverse Books, and more. She received her MFA in nonfiction from Pennsylvania State University and lives with her family in the Chicago area. Her bipolar disorder and ADHD shape her writing craft and process.