WHO I'M FROM: FAMILY TREES IN WORD AND IMAGE Photo Book Available
Ages 16-29
Summer 2017, Johns Hopkins Homewood
In this creative writing and photography workshop, student fellows will explore their personal histories by tracing relationships with family members, living and dead, present and absent; and also with family objects and places. They'll consider how "family trees" may include friends, neighbors, or mentors, and may extend even to historical and/or famous people they admire and have been influenced by. They'll work from their own memories, from stories they’ve heard, and from interviews and oral histories gathered for the workshop. They'll study items important to their families: photographs, letters, or possessions passed down through generations; and also objects and locations important to them as individuals. In poems, stories, and photographs, they'll assemble one or more "family trees" as ways of charting or celebrating the different kinds of connections. Some questions central to the workshop will be: "How are we shaped by others and how do we shape ourselves?" "How do we carry others inside us and how do we imagine we're carried inside the people we've known?" Fellows may also consider what kind of influence they'd like to have on those around them, the mark they want to make. Fellows will write poetry and fiction, and take still life and landscape photographs, as well as portraits. Their multimedia projects will be shared at a public exhibition and on the program website. Limited to 10 student fellows.
Jessica Hudgins lives in Baltimore, where she teaches creative writing. She received her MFA from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins.
Les Gray studies Cinematic Arts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and hopes to inspire the community that inspired her.
Ilana Malkin is a Maryland native and a graduate of The Writing Seminars at the Johns Hopkins University. She will attend Georgetown Law in the fall, and hopes to focus on women's rights and advocacy within the Korean American community.
