Announcement:
The Making of the Interrupters: A Writer Tries His Hand at Film
Alex Kotlowitz will discuss his creative journey as writer making the film The Interrupters.
Film clips will be shown. Q&A to follow the event.
Tuesday. February 21, 2012 5:30-6:30 pm
University Hall, Room 201- 1897 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL
This event is free and open to the public.
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Zakes Mda, the CWA Visiting Writer in Residence for Fall Quarter 2010, has one of his new works mentioned in the book section of the February 2012 issue of Vanity Fair. "South African novelist Zakes Mda recalls his political skirmishes in Sometimes There is a Void (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux).
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Listen to authors in our AUDIO section for CWA recordings of literary events.
Writers in Residence
Alex Kotlowitz is the Winter Quarter 2012 Writer in Residence for the Center for the Writing Arts. He teaches Writing 303-The Art of Non-Fiction: Telling Stories.This course will-through both reading and writing-explore the art of what is often called literary journalism, narrative nonfiction, or what John McPhee calls "the literature of fact." The best of nonfiction narrative wields a fierce power, poking and prodding our preconceptions of the world, pushing us to look at ourselves and others through a different prism. What makes for a compelling story? (What tools might we borrow from fiction?) Why employ the use of narrative? How does it help form our view of people and events? We'll explore the craft of reporting and research which borrows from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, history and sociology - and work with rigor and discipline on the art of good writing. We'll read nonfiction narratives-both book and magazine articles-on a host of subjects, ranging from war and poverty to the environment and sports. We'll work in this class as a professional writer might, from draft to draft. There will be regular writing assignments, and students will be asked to craft a longer narrative on a subject of interest to them. The course will be run as a seminar, so there will be an emphasis on critical class discussion.
Alex Kotlowitz is perhaps best known for the bestselling There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America. The book, which was published in 1991 and has since sold over half-a-million copies, was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Helen B. Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Carl Sandburg Award and a Christopher Award. The New York Public Library selected There Are No Children Here as one of the 150 most important books of the century.
About Kotlowitz’s second book, The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death and America’s Dilemma, The New York Times wrote: “Of all the many books written about race in America in the past couple of years, none has been quite like The Other Side of the River…It is the difference between the two towns, one white, one black, that anchors this story, give it its soul, and makes it important, essential even, for the rest of us to contemplate.” The book received The Chicago Tribune’s Heartland Prize for Non-Fiction and the Great Lakes Booksellers Award for Non-Fiction.
Kotlowitz’s most recent book, Never a City So Real (Crown), is a bit of a departure, a collection of contemporary stories from Chicago, his adopted hometown. Kotlowitz views Chicago as a kind of refuge for outsiders; it’s the people on the outside who are trying to clean up – or at least make sense of – the mess on the inside. Perspective doesn’t come easy if you’re standing in the center.
Between books, Kotlowitz has contributed to The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker and public radio’s This American Life. Over the past three years, he has produced three collections of personal narratives for Chicago Public Radio: Stories of Home, Love Stories and Stories of Money. Stories of Home was awarded a Peabody. He has served as a correspondant and writer for a Frontline documentary, Let’s Get Married, as well as correspondant and writer for two pieces for PBS’s Media Matters. His articles have also appeared in The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic and The New Republic. He has been a writer-in-residence for the Center for the Writing Arts since 2001.
