Name: A Workshop With S.L. Wisenberg: Writing the Body, Writing Through Crisis
Start: 2024-11-07T18:00:00-06:00
End: 2024-11-07T19:30:00-06:00
Location: 1620 Orrington Ave

A Bookends University writing workshop and a launch for the re-release of the author's memoir, "The Adventures of Cancer Bitch."
About this Event

Writing the Body, Writing Through Crisis

Each person’s pain is personal. And yet in the personal, one finds the universal. In this workshop with S.L. Wisenberg-- "a Chicago literary icon" (Hypertext)--writers with all levels of experience are welcome to discuss writing about pain in trauma in a way that's both true to the self and accessible to others.

Come with a notion, an idea, a draft, a nearly-finished piece with a section that stumps you. We’ll do exercises to get you on your way. This is a safe space where you are welcome to share but only if you'd like to.

Your ticket includes admission to the workshop and a copy of the upcoming re-release of Wisenberg's bookThe Adventures of Cancer Bitch. In this acerbic chronicle, Wisenberg provides a memoir at once hilarious, rageful, and feminist. Drawing on a wealth of personal, literary, and historical sources, The Adventures of Cancer Bitch creates an indelible image of a politically engaged, self-aware woman facing a daunting disease while examining her soul and society. (And riding the subway and teaching one-breasted.) It’s a thought-provoking memoir from a woman who questions everything and everyone, including herself. The revised and expanded second edition features new observations and reflections from the author.

S.L. Wisenberg is known for writing work that's "seriously funny." In addition to Cancer Bitch, she is also the author of The Wandering Womb: Essays in Search of Home (2023), winner of the Juniper Prize in nonfiction, The Sweetheart Is In, and Holocaust Girls: History, Memory, & Other Obsessions. She is a fourth-generation Texan who lives in Chicago and edits Another Chicago Magazine. For ten years she was the co-director of the graduate creative writing program at Northwestern. Wisenberg's extensive list of accolades includes a Pushcart Prize and awards and fellowships from the Illinois Arts Council, Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.