Description | This event is free and open to the public Please join us for readings by Autumn Quarter MFA Visiting Writer Nisi Shawl, Bethany Hudson (MFA 2nd year student), and Reed Lowell (MFA Alumni '19). from The Convergence Zone is a series of author readings, artist talks, and performances sponsored by the MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics at the University of Washington Bothell. It brings together sometimes peaceable, sometimes combustible, fronts of discovery and experiment. This series discusses and performs written arts in an expanded field. Gamut: A Literary Series provides opportunities to hear and see work from diverse creative voices within the UW Bothell MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics community. The series features current students, alumni, and faculty readings and is open to the public. The name “Gamut” refers to the MFA program’s interdisciplinary nature, which encourages and challenges students to experiment between genres and mediums, resulting in a wide range of creative works. Artist Bios:
Bethany Hudson Bethany Hudson (she/her) is a Seattle-based writer whose work most often finds itself at the intersection of historical and literary fiction. She is endlessly fascinated by the ways in which past informs present and fiction informs fact. Bethany holds a BFA in Acting from the University of Southern California and is a second year MFA Candidate in Creative Writing & Poetics at the University of Washington, Bothell. Her in-progress thesis, Everywhere the Light Touches, is a fictionalized biopic of Alice K. Whitney Hutchison, a pioneering twentieth-century businesswoman from her hometown of Rochester, NY. Alice's remarkable career at the Eastman Kodak Company shaped the course of American photography and cinema for over forty years--only to be erased from the pages of history, even within her lifetime. Themes of gender and class, art and science are examined through her eyes in the manner of photographs: interrogating what can be observed and has been recorded, while haunted by the context that hovers out of frame. Special thanks to John Elsbree at the George Eastman Museum and the staff at the Rush Rhees library at the University of Rochester for their care and curation of the archives that have helped to resurrect Alice's story. Reed Lowell Reed Lowell is a poet and paraeducator living in Bothell, Washington. His poetry has appeared in the poetry zine SPREAD and in Clamor Literary and Arts Journal. When he is not writing about mirrors, dreams, and other flights of fancy, he can be found eating great food, drinking wine, and spending time with his friends and family. Nisi Shawl Nisi Shawl (they/them) is the multiple award-winning author, co-author, and editor of over a dozen books of speculative fiction and related nonfiction, including the standard text on diverse representation, Writing the Other: A Practical Approach. Shawl’s best-known fiction is the Nebula Award finalist novel Everfair. Kinning, published in January 2024, is an Everfair sequel. Additional recent books include the February 2023 Middle Grade historical fantasy novel Speculation, and the October 2024 Beat-era fantasy The Day and Night Books of Mardou Fox. Editing credits include the New Suns anthology series and, with Dr. Rebecca J. Holden, Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices, and Octavia E. Butler. They’ve spoken at Duke University, Spelman College, Sarah Lawrence College, and many other institutions. For over two decades they have served on the boards of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and of the Carl Brandon Society, a nonprofit supporting the presence of people of color in fantastic literature. Shawl lives in Seattle, Washington, on the shores of a large lake full of dangerous currents and millionaires. from The Convergence Zone is open to all members of the UW Bothell community and the community at large. |
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