International Writers' Collective: Recent Episodes
InternationalWritersCollective
Master classes and interviews with writers & poets. The International Writers' Collective is an Amsterdam-based learning community. We offer creative writing courses locally and online.
Best-selling author and IWC instructor, Ellen Keith speaks about her latest novel The Dutch Orphan and shares insights on researching a historical novel, working with multiple POVs, outlining, and giving characters purpose
Nigerian author Lola Shoneyin speaks with IWC teacher Karen Kao about her award-winning novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives, which is soon to be a Netflix series. They cover using multiple points of view, tackling social issues, enriching dramatic scenes with humour, Lola's best advice for aspiring writers and more.
New York Times-bestselling author Lauren Groff gave a master class for our students on 25 February 2023 at Huis de …
Award-winning Amsterdam based author Julie Phillips gave a special master class for us on 16 October 2022, moderated by IWC teacher Karen Kao. The class focussed on her newest book in which she examines the relationship between motherhood and creativity through the lens of multiple female artists like Alice Walker, Doris Lessing and Audre Lorde. In The Baby on the Fire Escape: Creativity, Motherhood, and the Mind-Baby Problem, Julie tackles pre-conceived notions about who is allowed to be an artist.
Jenny and Karen discuss:
- Must an artist be alone to create?
- Do all artists need to be “art monsters” in order to succeed?
- To what extent does the myth of the “perfect” parent / child / lover continue to burden writers today as we navigate ever increasing roles and responsibilities?
ABOUT THESE TEACHERS
Julie Phillips is the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Hugo Award and the Locus Awards for her biography James Triptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. Her short form work has appeared in The New Yorker, Ms., The Village Voice and the Dutch daily newspaper Trouw. She is the recipient of a Writing Creative Nonfiction Grant and an alumna of residencies at Hedgebrook and Willapa Bay AIR.
Karen Kao is a teacher with the International Writers’ Collective and is the winner of the 2022 Kenyon Review Short Nonfiction Contest and a nominee for the Pushcart Prize, VERA, and Best of the Net. Her debut novel, The Dancing Girl and the Turtle (Linen Press 2017) is the first of a quartet of historical novels set in Shanghai. Karen’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, Pleiades Magazine, Hippocampus Magazine, and Tahoma Literary Review, among others.
Copyright © 2022 Julie Phillips & International Writers’ Collective
Best-selling American novelist Jenny Offill gave a special master class for us on 17 July 2022, moderated by IWC teacher Karen Kao. The class focussed on her third novel Weather, her writing processes and influences.
Jenny is perhaps best known for her novel, Dept. of Speculation (named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review) and Weather (shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction). She’s also the author of a number of children’s books.
Jenny and Karen discuss:
- the style of fragmentary writing
- the use of outside voices
- how curiosity feeds her writing
- how humor and sadness work together
- what novelists can learn from poetry, writing for children, and much more
The class was held in the garden of one of our teaching locations in Amsterdam so there is some occasional background noise.
ABOUT THESE TEACHERS
Jenny Offill is the author of three critically acclaimed novels and four children’s books. Her shorter work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and Slate among other notable publications. She’s the recipient of a number of prestigious fellowships, including a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She’s taught at MFA programs at Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Syracuse University, and others.
Karen Kao is a teacher with the International Writers’ Collective and is the winner of the 2022 Kenyon Review Short Nonfiction Contest and a nominee for the Pushcart Prize, VERA, and Best of the Net. Her debut novel, The Dancing Girl and the Turtle (Linen Press 2017) is the first of a quartet of historical novels set in Shanghai. Karen’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, Hippocampus Magazine, Tahoma Literary Review, The Common, and The Shanghai Literary Review, among others.
Copyright © 2022 Jenny Offill & International Writers’ Collective
Prize-winning poet and spoken word artist Faylita Hicks gave a special master class for us on 27 February 2022 moderated by Laura Wetherington. The class focused on Faylita’s poetry collection HoodWitch. In speaking about their aspirations for the collection, Faylita described it as “a statement about black spirituality, about transformation, about queerness and being non-binary and what it means to me to be nonbinary.”
The class covered topics such as:
- Combining advocacy and poetry
- Exploring big questions and abstract ideas in a way that’s accessible
- Writing across different forms and genres
- Reading for an audience & much more.
HoodWitch was published by Acre Books in 2019. You can get it in paperback from the publisher, Book Depository, Bookshop.org, or also in ebook form from bol.com, Kobo, and most other major retailers. Faylita’s album A New Name for My Love is available on most streaming platforms.
ABOUT THESE TEACHERS
Faylita Hicks (she/they) is the author of HoodWitch (Acre Books, 2019). This debut poetry collection was a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Poetry, the 2019 Balcones Poetry Prize, and the 2019 Julie Suk Award. Hicks is the former Editor-in-Chief of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review and the current Editor-in-Chief of Black Femme Collective. They were the 2021 Poet-in-Residence for Civil Rights Corps and are a Fellow at the Texas After Violence Project and the fall 2021 Shearing Fellow for the Black Mountain Institute. In June 2021, they became a voting member of the Recording Academy/Grammys. Their work has been featured in Adroit, American Poetry Review, Ecotone, F(r)iction, HuffPost, Kenyon Review, Longreads, Palette Poetry, Poetry Magazine, The Rumpus, Slate, Vox, VIDA Review, Yale Review, and others. Hicks received a BA in English from Texas State University-San Marcos in 2010 and an MFA in Creative Writing from Sierra Nevada University in 2018. They have been awarded fellowships and residencies from Tin House, Lambda Literary, among others, and won Palette Poetry’s 2020 Sappho Prize. They were a member of the IWC’s Level III poetry course.
Laura Wetherington (she/her) is the author of Parallel Resting Places (Parlor Press 2021), which was awarded the 2020 New Measure Prize by Peter Gizzi. Laura’s earlier collection, A Map Predetermined and Chance (Fence Books), was selected by C.S. Giscombe for the National Poetry Series. Her poems have been featured by Poem-A-Day, the Colorado Review, and The Normal School, among many others. Laura is the poetry editor at Baobab Press. She teaches creative writing at Amsterdam University College and poetry classes at the International Writers’ Collective.
Copyright © 2022 Faylita Hicks & International Writers’ Collective
In this master class, Jing-Jing Lee speaks about her historical novel 'How We Disappeared' with teacher Karen Kao. They discuss the delicate art of writing about trauma, interweaving multiple time periods and points of view, finding and working with an agent, and more.
In this master class, award-winning poet Laura Wetherington and Wende Crow discuss using fake translations for inspiration, the power of epistolary poems and confessionals, and much more.
Venezuelan-American poet and short story author Megin Jiménez gave a special master class for us on 1 March 2020 in Amsterdam.
The class focussed on craft in Megin’s prose poetry collection Mongrel Tongue, which won the 1913 Press Prize for First Books. She received her MFA from the prestigious New School in New York. Her poems, stories and essays have appeared in the Best American Poetry Blog, the Kenyon Review, Barrelhouse, NOO Journal, Barrow Street, Denver Quarterly, LIT, Tarpaulin Sky, and other journals. Megin also works as a professional translator and teaches the Collective’s creative writing courses in The Hague.
Unfortunately due to a technical hiccup, we only have a recording of the second half of the class where we discussed the writing and publishing process. Topics covered included:
- Stocking the well of inspiration
- Getting yourself unstuck
- Dealing with self-doubt
- Coming up with titles
- Finding the right place to submit your work
- Keeping writing fun & much more
https://internationalwriterscollective.com/podcast/megin-jimenez-master-class-recording/
In this master class with Rebecca O’Connor, novelist, poet and editor of the literary magazine 'The Moth', we talked about her novel 'He Is Mine and I Have No Other' and the importance of setting, the challenges of capturing a teenage voice, the charms of the epistolary novel, the value of a good beta reader, some tips for those who’d like to see their work published in 'The Moth', and much more.
In this master class with award-winning Irish writer Caoilinn Hughes, we talked about her novel 'Orchid & the Wasp' and figuring out form, crafting a complex female protagonist, how to write when you don’t feel like it or have limited time, how publishing can kind of mess with your head and how to protect yourself, and much more.
In this master class with Kristen Roupenian, we discussed her viral short story 'Cat Person' and a few others from her debut collection 'You Know You Want This'. Some of the specific topics covered included using horror and fantastical elements in your writing, learning when to stop revising, and dealing with the negative voice in your head.
In this master class with award-winning author Jennifer Clement, we discussed the challenges of writing about social issues, the role …
In this master class, award-winning poet Joost Baars and Sarah Carriger discussed the art of the line-break, poetry in translation, getting unstuck and more. Some inspiring words for poets and fiction writers alike.
In this master class with award-winning Indian novelist Manu Joseph, we talked about his novel Miss Laila, Armed & Dangerous and getting political in your writing, the art of satire, the challenges of writing from the point of view of characters very different than yourself, the value of humour, finding your voice as a writer and more.
This master class with Karen Kao covered how to write violence effectively, include multiple points of view, incorporate research into historical fiction without being overwhelmed by it, find a publisher and much more. Please be aware that Karen's novel contains a rape scene which is read aloud in the class.
American author A.M. Homes gave a special Craft Talk for the students of the International Writers’ Collective on 14 April …