Registration is rolling until April 15 at 11:59PM EST. No application is required (except for financial aid— Applications for financial aid are due April 10 at 5PM EST).

$65 w/financial aid available to residents of Greater Philadelphia (Bucks, Camden, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties)

3 hour class: Monday, April 22, 2024 6-9PM EST

Often times, people feel that in order to write about themselves, their story has to have a clear beginning, middle, and ending, all wrapped up with a pretty bow. But for most of us queer and trans folks, our stories aren’t so linear, so traditional. In Queering the Narrative, we’ll explore the ways in which LGBTQ+ folks can experiment with creative nonfiction in non-traditional forms. These sorts of essays are referred to as “borrowed form” or “hermit crab”, because they adapt to an already existing form: a travel itinerary, a dating profile, a eulogy. Maybe you want to write about your relationship with your body or your gender, but it makes more sense as a grocery list or divorce papers. Maybe you’re ready to tell the story of your “coming out” as a “how to” guide or a recipe. In this workshop, participants will read and engage with short-form examples of non-traditional essays/memoir by queer and trans folks, generate a list of form examples, and begin drafting their own borrowed form essays.

Jackie Domenus (they/she) is a queer writer from New Jersey. Their first book, NO OFFENSE: A MEMOIR IN ESSAYS, will be published with ELJ Editions in 2025. A 2021 Tin House Winter Workshop graduate, their work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Normal School, The Offing, Pidgeonholes, Foglifter Journal, and elsewhere. Jackie serves as a publishing assistant at Guernica Magazine. You can find her on Twitter @jackiedwrites.