Arlington author Michelle Hoover discusses using family history to spark fiction

Michelle Hoover is the Fannie Hurst Writer-in-Residence at Brandeis University and teaches at GrubStreet, where she leads the Novel Incubator program. She is a 2014 NEA Fellow and has been a Writer-in-Residence at Bucknell University, a MacDowell Fellow, and a winner of the PEN/New England Discovery Award. Her debut, The Quickening, was a 2010 Massachusetts Book Award “Must Read.” Her newest novel Bottomland was published this spring.

Hoover’s discussion topic will be Using Family History to Spark Fiction. Many of us have rich family stories stored away in the journals, legends and photographs of our ancestors. We’d love to use them in our own writing, but how? Hoover will describe the freedom that fictionalizing such stories allows, as well as its possible pitfalls. The discussion will include how to focus the story, choose a structure, support it with research, and develop characters that begin in our memories and imaginations and come to life on the page.

Reserve your spot online http://ArlingtonCommunityEd.org

Walk-ins welcome, space permitting.