true crime

MWC: “Can True Crime be Ethical” Rebecca Makkai + Rachel Monroe

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“Can True Crime be Ethical?” discussion with Rebecca Makkai and Rachel Monroe. Chaired by Julia Wheeler

Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of the best-selling literary mystery I Have Some Questions for You, Rebecca Makkai, and New Yorker investigative reporter and author of Savage Appetites Rachel Monroe discuss the moral murkiness of writing crime, true and otherwise.

Rebecca Makkai is the Chicago-based author of the novels I Have Some Questions for You, The Great Believers, The Hundred-Year House, and The Borrower, as well as the short story collection Music for Wartime. The Great Believers was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and received the ALA Carnegie Medal and the LA Times Book Prize, among other honors. Makkai is on the MFA faculties of Sierra Nevada College and Northwestern University, and she is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.

Her work has been translated into 20 languages, and her short fiction has been anthologized in The Pushcart Prize XLI (2017), The Best American Short Stories 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2016 and 2009, New Stories from the Midwest and Best American Fantasy, and featured on Public Radio International’s Selected Shorts and This American Life.

Her first novel, The Borrower, was a Booklist Top Ten Debut, an Indie Next pick, and an O Magazine selection. Her second novel, The Hundred-Year House, is the story of a haunted house and a haunted family, told in reverse; Library Journal called it “stunning, ambitious, readable and intriguing.” It was chosen as the Chicago Writers Association’s novel of the year, and received raves in The New York Times Book Review and elsewhere.

Rachel Monroe is a contributing writer at The New Yorker, where she covers Texas and the Southwest. Previously, she was a contributing writer at The Atlantic and has also written for the New York Times Magazine, New York, Esquire, Harper’s, and many other publications. Her first book, “Savage Appetites: True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession,” was published in 2019; it was named a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and a Best Book of the Year by the Chicago Tribune, Esquire, and Jezebel. She lives in Marfa, Texas.

 

MWF: “Origins of the Original” workshop with Rebecca Makkai

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“Origins of the Original” workshop with Rebecca Makkai

For writing to succeed, it must be both well-executed and original. But when we sit down to write, the first words, scenes, characters, conflicts, and settings we come up with are often the least original ones of which we’re capable. Digging past the obvious, the stock (and even the products of the collective unconscious), we might finally arrive at stories that are strikingly new and memorable. In this class we’ll cover some key elements of originality — specificity, idiosyncrasy, complexity, repetition, and change — and talk about accessing them in both drafting and revision.

While originality might seem intuitive, or even a product of the writer’s personality, it’s in fact a skill that can be sharpened. That’s what we’ll be doing.

Rebecca Makkai

Rebecca Makkai is the Chicago-based author of the novels I Have Some Questions for You, The Great Believers, The Hundred-Year House, and The Borrower, as well as the short story collection Music for Wartime. The Great Believers was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and received the ALA Carnegie Medal and the LA Times Book Prize, among other honors. Makkai is on the MFA faculties of Sierra Nevada College and Northwestern University, and she is Artistic Director of StoryStudio Chicago.

Her work has been translated into 20 languages, and her short fiction has been anthologized in The Pushcart Prize XLI (2017), The Best American Short Stories 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2016 and 2009, New Stories from the Midwest and Best American Fantasy, and featured on Public Radio International’s Selected Shorts and This American Life.

Her first novel, The Borrower, was a Booklist Top Ten Debut, an Indie Next pick, and an O Magazine selection.

Her second novel, The Hundred-Year House, is the story of a haunted house and a haunted family, told in reverse; Library Journal called it “stunning, ambitious, readable and intriguing.” It was chosen as the Chicago Writers Association’s novel of the year, and received raves in The New York Times Book Review and elsewhere.

Her short story collection, Music for Wartime, appeared in July, 2015. It was printed on paper made from that one tree that fell in the forest when no one was there to hear it.