Communiques

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Crossing Borders:  The Immigrant Voice in American Literature.

My communiques from Key West to the the freezing north on the sessions in this fascinating conference.  For more information on this and other Key West Literary Seminars see:  http://www.keywestliteraryseminar.org/

To view or print one of my communiques, click on the communique number.

Communique #1     Key West and Elmaz Abinador

Communique #2    Keynote Address:  Bharati Mukherjee

Communique #3    Robert Olen Butler, Clark Blaise, Elizabeth Nunez and the panel discussion: What do immigrant writers know about America and the world that non-immigrants don’t? with Andrei Codrescu, Junot Diaz, Cristina Garcia, and Francisco Goldman.

Communique #4   Jeanne Watasuki Houston and Giving Voice in a New Language, a conversation with Alexandar Hemon and Lan Cao.

Communique #5     How do you translate yourself, your story, into a new language?, a conversation with Eva Hoffman and Elizabeth Nuñez

Communique #6     Sandra Cisneros.  Elmaz Abinader and David Wong Louie in a conversation on “Constructed Borders”

Communique #7   Panel:  The Impact of Culture: New Creativities in Literature and Life, Clark Blaise, Jeanne Houston, Bharati Mukherjee, Elizabeth Nunez Robert Olen Butler and Amy Tan

Communique #8    Amy Tan

Communique #9   Francisco Goldman on Jose Marti’s Vision of Our America

Communique #10    Final session:  The Borders of Our Lives

Communique #11     Tony Kushner

 

Testimonials

"Thank you so much for the wonderful session on Sunday [Feb. 20, 2011]. I think your way of leading us through the writing exercises is very special, particularly in the way you are able to build trust among the participants and to make them feel safe writing about and talking about very personal matters."
Catherine Youngren, President, Jewish Genealogical Institute of British Columbia
 
I have had the privilege to attend two different memoir writing workshops given by Lil Blume, the first was a workshop at Har El Synagogue in North Vancouver which was open to all members of the congregation and the second was for the Vancouver Second Generation group (adult children of Holocaust survivors) who have been meeting regularly over many years and doing workshops with Lil Blume. In each case Lil was enthusiastic, interesting, and motivating. In each of these workshops, participants ranged widely in age, writing ability, and experience as writers. Lil demonstrated an inspiring ability to make the workshop relevant for all participants while supporting each of us in such a way that we not only moved forward individually, but learned to honour and appreciate the contributions of others. I cannot recommend Lil highly enough as a teacher and mentor.

-- Helen Mintz, storyteller, performer, translator www.helenmintz.com

 

KEY WEST LITERARY SEMINAR

The Key West Literary Seminar welcomes readers and writers to this subtropical island city. Our flagship program is the annual Seminar, a four-day readers’ event that explores a unique literary theme each January. At the Seminar, readers from all over the world join the best writers of our time for the readings, discussions, lectures, and parties that make up today’s smartest and most high-spirited literary gathering. Our Writers’ Workshop Program also takes place in January but is distinct from the Seminar; here, writers of all levels meet in small groups with esteemed faculty to share their work and explore the craft of writing in a focused and nurturing environment.

2013 Seminar