Title of Event: Fiction Writer's Workshop With Molly Knipe
When: Friday, July 17, 2009 7:00 PM
Description: Join Molly Knipe for a 3-session crash course on short story writing, by the end of which each participant will have completed a short story. The group will explore the elements of craft and learn ways to create, support and indulge our inner storytellers.

Molly has an MFA in creative writing, has published numerous short stories, and has taught fiction writing at the U. of A. and Pima Community College.

Where Clouds Are Formed by Zepeda, Ofelia Ofelia Zepeda is a Native American poet who possesses a kind of double vision. She sees the contemporary world through her own highly observant eyes and, at the same time, through the eyes of her Tohono O'odham ancestors. Seeing this way infuses her poetry with a resonance and depth that makes it a delight to read--and re-read. Zepeda is as clear-eyed about the past as she is about the present. She recalls waiting for the school bus on a cold morning inside her father's truck, listening to the sounds of the engine, the windshield wipers, and the "soft rain on the hood." She remembers celebrating Mass on the "cold dirt floor of the Winter Solstice." In the present, she sees both the frustration and the humor in a woman she observes trying to eat pancakes with one hand while her other resides in a cast: "Watching her, I realize eating pancakes is a two-handed job." Whatever she sees, she filters through her second set of eyes, which keep the past always present. She tells of traveling to Waw Giwulig, the most sacred mountain of the Tohono O"odham, to ask for blessings and forgiveness. She writes that one should always bring music to the mountains, "so they are generous with the summer rains." And, still, "the scent of burning wood / holds the strongest memory. / Mesquite, cedar, pinon, juniper, . . . / we catch the scent of burning wood; / we are brought home." It is a joy to see the world fresh through her eyes.

The Disappearance of Irene Dos Santos by Mascarenhas, Margaret Set against the backdrop of political upheaval in contemporary Venezuela, this debut novel is entertaining yet profoundly serious, rich with religious and cultural mythology, and peopled with lovable, flawed characters -- poets, rebels, maids, and midwives -- who reveal the complex strata of Venezuelan society as well as their own humanity. Margaret Mascarenhas has arrived on the literary scene with a sizzle.--Linda Bubon, Women &Children First (Chicago, IL)