Writing Into It with Eileen Myles

Saturday, August 14 – 4-6 PM EDT

I’ve discovered after four (well, maybe five) experiences of writing book-length prose that for me long fiction or nonfiction is a cumulative affair. One easy stab, the moonlit beginning and then the rest is a protracted, agonizing and fun studio affair. I read things that give me sudden surges of insight into what it is I think I’m doing and then I probably do the opposite. I discover that something I’ve written elsewhere can slide right in. I decide it’s a bible, a shrine, a secret detective novel. Altogether the act of writing a book, even a little book is a messy process that finds its own logic, I think through a dedication to play and not minding being bewildered as any traveller would be at times in order to get to someplace good. You probably need to be a poet to write prose. So we’ll look at some passages that feel like fertile leaps to me, I promise we will read a poem and I will tell you about some of my own slogs, even sharing about the one I’m in and you will definitely write something while we’re together. We can decide collectively whether to share it or not. Maybe we’ll draw straws.

$90 | Closed

DISQUIET is all about place. And while the place we’re all about has traditionally been Lisbon, we know that most writers spend most of the time in their places, writing. The pandemic got us thinking: What if we visited some writers of note and asked them to show us their environs? GK Chesterton once described the act of art making as the creation of worlds in which the artists would wish to wander, the landscapes of their dreams, their own secret planets. What would we learn about writers and their work when welcomed to the landscapes of their dreams? Where do they wish to wander and what unexpected things might we find there? It’s taken us a bit longer than we hoped to make this idea a reality, but now we’d like to welcome you to the first of these events, a Christmas visit to Padgett Powell’s secret planet. 

Padgett Powell has taught twice at Disquiet. Upon the publication last month of Indigo, his new book of essays, the NYT called him “a giant lurking on the margins of American literature, about to stomp back into the spotlight and reclaim his crown.” Special correspondent Shane Hinton, author of Pinkies and editor of the anthology We Can’t Help It If We’re From Florida, will visit Powell at his home outside Gainesville, Florida, for an unscripted conversation and tour. Powell recently retired after a long career teaching creative writing at the University of Florida. His house was partially submerged during Hurricane Irma in 2017. He lives with his dog Johnny Hamm and recently acquired a puppy.

  FREE | Closed

 Abducted By Love with Kristen Arnett, Hosted by Shane Hinton

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, give or take a week, DISQUIET Special Correspondent Shane Hinton will join author Kristen Arnett (Mostly Dead Things, With Teeth) at a still-to-be-determined Florida location to talk writing and maybe enjoy a few snacks. We don’t know exactly what we’ll get from this live conversation, but we expect it to be good. Like a box of chocolates, only free and on Zoom.

FREE | Closed

A Collapse of the Real: The Unsettling and the Uncanny with Brian Evenson

Saturday, October 21, 4-6 PM EDT

What makes writing unsettling? How can you get readers to feel off balance as they read your work, and why would you want to? In this session we’ll look closely at some of the techniques that writers use to create a sensation in their readers that the ground is crumbling under their feet. We’ll look at how certain writers begin with a familiar situation and then subtly make it feel uncomfortable, threatening, or downright wrong. We’ll think about what these writers gain by fracturing reality, and how they pass the intensity of their characters’ disorientation along to readers. We’ll apply these tools to your own work in a two-part writing exercise as well.

Registration for this event will close at 1PM on Saturday, October 21.

$95 | Closed