World Building for Social Justice

Member Price: $125
SummerWrite Week 1
July 12 – 16
5 Sessions, 3 hours
Ages: 12 – 14
Deadline to Register: July 5, 11:59 pm
Instructor: Melissa Michal Slocum

Are you passionate about important social topics and silenced issues? Can you see robots taking over the world, or creatures trying to steal each other’s land? Science fiction and fantasy are generative spaces for social justice dialogue. Considering such writers as Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, and Margaret Atwood, we will be inspired to write stories that immerse readers in worlds that illuminate today’s injustices. Start a novel or strengthen one already begun, or even finish a short story during this weeklong exploration of new ways to see writing as resilience and breaking silence.

Melissa Michal Slocum is of Seneca, Welsh, and English descent. A fiction writer, essayist, photographer, and  literature and creative writing professor. She has a MFA from Chatham University, MA from Penn State, and PhD from Arizona State University, where she focused on education and representation of Indigenous histories and literatures in curriculum. She has read at the National American Indian Museum and Amerind Museum, and has published in The Florida Review, Yellow Medicine Review, and the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program’s Narrative Witnessing Project. Her short story collection, Living Along the Borderlines, was a finalist for the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize.

Workshops are conducted EST via Zoom, a virtual platform that allows you to participate in exercises and contribute to group conversation. To participate, please register by the deadline using the ticket portal below, or go to Scholarships. Zoom links are emailed to registered participants.

Scholarships Available