Poet/novelist to lead writing workshop via Zoom at SUNY

Cuban-American poet and novelist, Cristina Garcia, will describe her methods for choosing words, tone and imagery in her writing workshop/master class Cultivating Chaos: Craft Talk/Workshop on Monday, September 26, from noon to 2 p.m.

She will discuss “strategies for coaxing the strange, ineluctable, jagged-edged power of the wonderfully, dangerously unexpected into making a lasting, vivid difference in our writing.” She believes in “encouraging our work to unspool in unpredictable, organic ways; to welcome what surprises and disturbs us; and to harness wildness without domesticating its energies.”

An example of her allowing the unspooling and unpredictable is the evolution of her first novel. According to García, “My first novel, Dreaming in Cuban, started as a poem based on the women in my extended family. It quickly got out of control! Over time it metamorphosed into a meditation on the stories that official history excludes. Now after thirty years in circulation, it felt like a good time to give the novel a more public airing. Hence, this adaptation to the play.”

Garcia has had a varied career in writing having worked as a reporter for the Knoxville Journal, and then as a reporter and researcher, correspondent and bureau chief for Time Magazine. When she left journalism, she transitioned to writing fiction full-time, a genre which she has embraced while writing seven novels and three bo0ks for young readers. She also has a collection of poetry to her credit, and she has edited two anthologies. And she is a playwright as well.

García is also the founder and artistic director of Las Dos Brujas Writers’ Workshops.

She holds a BA in Political Science from Barnard College, and an MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Her work has been nominated for a National Book Award and translated into 15 languages. She has been honored with a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. García has been a Visiting Professor at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas-Austin and The University of Miami. She also has served as Professor and University Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University-San Marcos.

This event celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month. It is offered as a collaboration of Cultural Affairs and the Poetry Committee at SUNY Orange.