In April, find me at Writefest! This three-day celebration of all things writing related includes workshops by guest artists as well as workshops by Writespace’s own instructors. Join Tayyba Kanwal and me for “Everything Submissions!” on Friday, 29 April from 2:30-4:30 CST. Get the ins and outs of submitting your work—regardless of genre—at this workshop. We’ll cover finding opportunities for publication, formatting conventions, using online submission managers, and what happens when your submission is accepted. All levels of writers are welcome.
In June, I’ll be presenting with Lisa Neher at the International Alliance for Women in Music conference in Corvallis, Oregon. We’ll be giving a workshop called Feminist Hopepunk Opera, all about creating and supporting opera that tells stories about uplift, resilience, choosing gentleness, community building, and resisting cynicism.
In 2017, author Alexandra Rowland coined a new term: hopepunk. “Hopepunk,” she explained, “is the opposite of grimdark,” referring to creative works that dwell in dystopia, apocalypse, and violence. (Rowland 2018) Hopepunk, she continued, “is a philosophy that says ‘kindness and softness don’t equal weakness, and that, in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion.’” Annalee Newitz has expanded this definition, defining hopepunk as the opposite of apathy. (Romano 2018) Hopepunk caught on in a big way in speculative fiction in particular, but has spread out to include other genres and forms of storytelling, including opera. In this workshop, we explore hopepunk and what it can offer creators seeking to tell feminist stories on the operatic stage through examples of recent opera productions and works in progress including Carlos Simon and Sandra Seaton’s The First Bluebird in the Morning (2022); Henry Dumas and Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Brown Sounds (2020); Courtney Bryan, Blessed (2019); Carlisle Floyd’s Cold Sassy Tree (2000), Deborah Cheetham’s Pecan Summer (2010), and our own Now Available (2021). We will talk about creating tension and narratives in ways that celebrate what Nikita Mor calls “consciously chosen gentleness” (Mor 2017); how focusing on feminist topics including civil and reproductive rights, labor, activism, and image can be powerful catalysts for hopepunk creativity and for creating connections with audiences; and how framing optimism and resistance contributes to the well-being of new opera as a whole. The workshop ends with a Q&A period and open discussion with participants on generating and developing feminist hopepunk operas.
And if you’re planning your syllabi for the fall, remember that I’m available for class visits and workshops! My scholarly work focuses on women and music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; music and screen history; and music and theater and disability. My recent creative presentations and workshops have centered on writing and setting lyrics; the overlap of creative and scholarly work; research for creative writing, particularly historical fiction; and writing about and with myth.
