About This Training
Speculative Creative Nonfiction
Exploring Experimental Writing is a three-part series for writers ready to break free from traditional genre conventions and discover new possibilities for their work.
In our second session, we’ll blur the boundary between fiction and creative nonfiction by exploring what happens when we exaggerate speculation within our true stories. We’ll discuss what speculation is and examine how writers like Carmen Maria Machado and Lily Hoang use speculative elements to push the possibilities of nonfiction. We’ll also experiment with genre-bending forms and consider how invention, imagination, and formal experimentation can deepen a work rooted in lived experience. Then, writers will have the opportunity to draft their own speculative creative nonfiction piece. Join us to challenge what’s permissible in the most rigorously honest genre and discover how far the truth can stretch.
About Kayla Degala-Paraíso
Kayla (she/they) is a Filipina-American creative writing consultant and teacher at GrubStreet. She is also a social and economic justice activist, focusing on the intersection of labor, immigration, gender-based violence, and human rights. Blending the real and the mystical, her creative work often meditates on place, loss, and memory. Kayla’s writing has been published in [PANK] Magazine, Okay Donkey, ANMLY, and elsewhere; and has been nominated for the Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. When she is not writing or teaching writing, you can find Kayla exploring the great wilderness of her local Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NYC. As a returning Ocean BBAwareness Contest judge, Kayla is excited to witness youth art-activism for a sixth summer in a row.
Watch The Recording Below
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