July 5 – August 23
Registration now open for new 8-week writing workshop:
Sexual and Erotic Writing with Mary Anne Mohanraj
Mondays, 7 – 9PM
SomArts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan Street (between 8th and 9th streets),
San Francisco
Class size: minimum of 8, maximum of 12.
Cost: $160 non-members, $140 for KSW members.
**Note: This writing workshop is priced slightly higher than our other
8-week writing workshops to partially cover some of the travel costs of the
instructor, who will be flying in from Chicago to teach the workshop. Thanks
for your understanding.
To register, please send a check for the full amount to: Kearny Street
Workshop, 934 Brannan Street, San Francisco, CA 94103. Please include your
name, contact information (phone number and email address if possible), and
which class you are registering for. For questions, please contact program
manager Samantha Chanse at 415.503.0520 or info@kearnystreet.org.
Class Description:
In this course, we will explore various aspects of sexual, sensual and
erotic writing. We will experiment with poetry, fiction and non-fiction,
exploring the powerful and often difficult elements of sex-related
literature. We will examine such aspects as:
- the language of sexuality (clinical vs. crude vs. what?)
- the technical differences between erotic fiction and soft/hard porn
- the power of reclaiming one’s own sexual experience through memoir
- the ethics of sexual writing (especially within an Asian and/or female
experience)
Students will be encouraged to push their own boundaries, to take risks with
their writing, in a safe and nurturing workshop environment.
This will be a writing-intensive class, with an emphasis on group
participation and critique. Each student will finish the workshop with at
least one complete piece in the genre of their choice, suitable for
submission; we will also review markets for erotica and sexual writing.
There will be brief assigned readings, primarily excerpts from such authors
as Anais Nin, Nicholson Baker, Ginu Kamani, Chitra Divakaruni, Maxine Hong
Kingston, etc.
About the Instructor:
Mary Anne Mohanraj is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Utah,
specializing in post-colonial literature and creative writing. She is the
author of several books, including TORN SHAPES OF DESIRE (a collection),
AQUA EROTICA and WET (two erotica anthologies she edited for Random House),
KATHRYN IN THE CITY and THE CLASSICS PROFESSOR (two erotic
choose-your-own-adventure novels she wrote for Penguin), and A TASTE OF
SERENDIB (a Sri Lankan cookbook). Her most recent publications include “A
Gentle Man” (HARPUR PALATE), “Wild Roses” (THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW
EROTICA, VOL. 3) and “How It Started” (BEST LESBIAN EROTICA 2003). Mohanraj
founded and served as editor-in-chief from 1998-2000 for CLEAN SHEETS, one
of the foremost online erotica magazines. She has recently received a Neff
fellowship in English, a Steffenson-Canon fellowship in the Humanities, and
the Scowcroft Prize for Fiction. She lives in Chicago and is currently
finishing her dissertation, BODIES IN MOTION, an exploration of sexuality,
marriage, and Sri Lankan/American immigrant concerns.
www.mamohanraj.com
