(Jodi Angel, Skip Horack, Christian Kiefer, Bich Minh Nguyen, Luis Urrea) As fiction writers, we often feel pressure to write inside the confines of our own experience, as defined by our ethnic identity, gender, sexual orientation, economic class, and so on. This panel explores the edges and interstices of that pressure. In what contexts is it acceptable to write outside such confines? In what contexts is it not? What does "diversity" mean when creating a fictional world? As writers, who has cultural permission to press past the confines of one's own identity?

Published Date: June 29, 2016