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Finding your Voice Through the Anecdote, taught by Jess Alexander

Oct 23, 2024

07:00 PM - 09:00 PM

1019 E Washington, Iowa City, IA 52240

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Take class once a week this month 7–9 p.m. or drop in on one class! Classes: 10/19, 10/23, and 10/30. Drop-in prices are $20!

The blank page can feel like a glass wall we’re required to scale. We might wonder where to begin, what to include, and how we’ll ever find our voices. We are adept at narrativizing our own lives — even the dullest, most dreadful experiences become fodder for a good bar stool story — and yet, when confronted with a blank page, our skill and our joy too often abandon us. In this class, we’ll consider how our rich experience as veteran storytellers is key to unlocking our voices and our narratives. The goal of this course will be to translate our stories to the page, to mine our memories for sensual details, and to find new meanings in the stories we keep telling. This course is for poets or prose writers who want to write about their lives but don’t know where or how to begin.

JESSICA ALEXANDER’S novella, None of This Is an Invitation (co-written with Katie Jean Shinkle) was published by Astrophil Press in summer 2023. Her story collection, Dear Enemy, was the winning manuscript in the 2016 Subito Prose Contest, as judged by Selah Saterstrom. Her collaborative project That Woman Could Be You came out with BlazeVox in April 2022. Her novel, Agnes, We’re Not Murderers is forthcoming from Clash Books. To register go to Porchlight's website!

Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University of Iowa–sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires a reasonable accommodation in order to participate in this program, please contact in advance at

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