Second Lives: Writing the Familiar with Fresh Insight

Second Lives: Writing the Familiar with Fresh InsightWhat subjects do we return to again and again in poems? What are the stories and ideas that just wont let go? What do we notice when we write about the same events at different times in our lives? Sometimes we need the distance of time to see experiences through fresh eyes and to fully render them on the page. Using examples from her own work, Lisa Kwong will discuss how writing about familiar subjects at different ages has yielded new insights and

What subjects do we return to again and again in poems? What are the stories and ideas that just won’t let go? What do we notice when we write about the same events at different times in our lives? Sometimes we need the distance of time to see experiences through fresh eyes and to fully render them on the page. Using examples from her own work, Lisa Kwong will discuss how writing about familiar subjects at different ages has yielded new insights and stronger poems. She will encourage participants to not be afraid of old drafts and to give them second lives.

This is an OnDemand webinar.

Instructor:

A native of Radford, Virginia, Lisa Kwong is AppalAsian, an Affrilachian Poet, and author of Becoming AppalAsian (Glass Lyre Press), a Weatherford Award in Poetry nominee. Her poetry and creative nonfiction have appeared in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume III: Contemporary Appalachia (Second Edition); Untelling Magazine, Women Speak, A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia, Anthology of Appalachian Writers, Best New Poets, The Sleuth, Pluck!: The Journal of Affrilachian Arts and Culture, and other publications. She is a 2024 recipient of the City of Bloomington (Indiana) Arts Commission’s Artistic Advancement Grant and is currently working on her second book of poems and a memoir. A multidisciplinary educator, she teaches at Indiana University and Ivy Tech Community College.