09
Workshop #
09
Writing The Transnational Story
By
Xu Xi
We live in globalized times. Those of us who regularly traverse nations, cultures or languages embrace the betwixt-and-between of our transnational reality. But how do we write from this “trans” perspective — of trans-national, trans-cultural, trans-lingual, trans-religious, etc. life — in fiction without bumbling into stereotypes or TMI (too much information)? In this workshop, we will consider ways to write our stories by reading like a transnational writer. We will do reading and writing exercises, using excerpts of stories, and respond to questions and writing prompts in search of ways to voice our “trans” global reality.
Workshop Venue: NIE Block 5 Level 1 TR506
Biography
XU XI 許素細 is an Indonesian-Chinese novelist, short fiction writer and essayist from Hong Kong who became a U.S. citizen at the age of 33. Author of fifteen books, including the hybrid collection Monkey in Residence and Other Speculations (Signal 8 Press, UK, November 1, 2022), This Fish is Fowl: Essays of Being (Nebraska 2019) and the novel That Man In Our Lives (C&R, 2016), among others. She has also edited/co-edited five anthologies of Asian literature, including most recently The Art and Craft of Asian Stories (Bloomsbury, 2021), co-authored with Robin Hemley with whom she also co-founded Authors at Large. She was writer-in-residence at Arizona State University, the City University of Hong Kong, the University of Iowa, and directed two international MFA programs in writing. Earlier, she held management positions in Asia and the U.S. at the Asian Wall Street Journal, Federal Express, Pinkerton’s, among others. She currently holds the William H.P. Jenks Chair in Contemporary Letters at the College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts. A diehard transnational, she now splits life between New York and the rest of the world.
Follow her @xuxiwriter.