Cooper Street Workshops: The Body in Prose: Fiction Writing and Disability

From Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame to William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, characters with disabilities have been a part of our literary imagination for centuries. In this workshop, we’ll consider the narratives and tropes, both good and problematic, that have shaped our current understanding of ableism and disability. By reading excerpts by renowned authors like June Jordan and Audre Lorde, we will discuss how to characterize and create stories that show people with disabilities as fully imagined and complex on the page. You do not have to identify as someone with disabilities to attend this workshop and you do not have to specialize in fiction. The skills and prompts we use in this class will be transferable to other genres as well.

This workshop will take place online. Register at the link below to receive login information.

About the instructor: Jade Jones was born and raised in Southern New Jersey. A former Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, she is a graduate of Princeton University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow. She is currently the Dean’s Fellow in Writing Arts at Rowan University, where she teaches first year writing and creative writing.