Elizabeth Hatmaker, English
Euphemism, ISU’s undergraduate creative writing magazine, is currently developing a series of youth writing workshops to be implemented beginning in the spring. As faculty advisor, I am cognizant of the fact that these workshops present not only a wonderful opportunity for outreach, but also an opportunity to explore how community arts programs are linked to the project of democracy. Are the narrative and lyric sensibilities we use to construct what good democracy might look like the same as those used in contemporary writing practices and/or by diverse community members? What happens if workshop members write poems or stories that don’t reflect what we might see as democratic values? Given censorship concerns raised by the Columbine High School shootings and other terror scares, I am curious about what a democratic creative practice might look like. In my presentation, I will suggest various expressivist, constructivist, therapeutic and experimental modes of creative writing pedagogy and question how each might reflect the civic needs and challenges of city-spaces that are increasingly privatized, security-conscious, and consumer-driven.
