Announcing a New Critique Group:

 

Introducing The House of Authors

   

HBO premieres the prequel to Game of Thrones 

8/21/22 at 9 pm EDT and 6 pm MST

The original Game of Thrones turned out to be one of the most popular shows HBO ever produced. So much so that they assigned their best writers to the show and hired excellent acting talent. The House of the Dragon prequel will likely get the same red carpet treatment. That means writers have an opportunity to learn from these top-of-their-game professionals.

Watch an episode and enjoy it. Then watch it again and take notes. Here are some handy forms to help you keep track of your findings.

Episode	Review Form	Script	Writer Recap
1	Episode 1	S1E1 Script	YouTube
2	Episode 2	S1E2 Script	YouTube
3	Episode 3	S1E3 Script	YouTube
4	Episode 4	S1E4 Script	YouTube
5	Episode 5	S1E5 Script	YouTube
6		S1E6 Script	YouTube
7		S1E7 Script	YouTube
8		S1E8 Script	YouTube
9		S1E9 Script	YouTube

If you notice something I missed, please leave me a comment below. I will keep track of all our findings and publish them on this Playlist and at this Website.

Magical Realism and Feminist Subversion in China and Beyond

Thursday, Nov. 7, 4:00 pm in Liberal Arts Building #136

How do Chinese activists today get around increasingly repressive political censorship? While the pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong, and Beijing’s severe reaction to them, confirm the lack of rights in China, young people on the Mainland are creating more roundabout ways to communicate their subversive ideas. 

Online literature in China flourishes, with reinventions of traditional genres such as sword-fighting, with a subversive, contemporary edge. Young women use creative linguistic innovations to subvert censorship of feminist social media. After the censorship of the Me Too movement, they used the emojis of rice (mi) and rabbit (tu) in place of the English words (homophones for “Me” and “Too”). 

Persecution of feminists in China is on the rise, with both activists and authors imprisoned. Through the veil of magical realism, brave women continue to voice opposition via hugely popular online novels. As repression increases, so does resistance. This is similar to how magical realism was originally used in Latin America to criticize dictatorships while avoiding political censorship and persecution. In addition to the China focus, this lecture provides keys to understanding magical realism, including how the imagination shapes our ways of seeing and acting in the world. Drawing from my book Décoloniser l’imaginaire: du réalisme magique chez Maryse Condé, Marie NDiaye; et Sylvie Germain (L’Harmattan, 2007), it includes examples from China, the Francophone world, and beyond. 

Presentation

Professor of Literature Kate Rose is currently on leave from China University of Mining and Technology. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Boston College and went on to get her PhD in Comparative Literature from Université de Montpellier, France. 

She is the author or co-author of multiple books, chapters, academic articles, and reviews on feminism, traumatic memory in literature, social linguistics, French Literature, Chinese literature, and indigenous literature of the Americas. She is also the author of several fictional short stories and one novel.

She is the editor of a forthcoming book in Routledge’s Series on Contemporary Literature, titled Displaced: Migration, Indigeneity, and Trauma. Currently she is seeking a department at NAU interested in integrating her interdisciplinary and international teaching and research. In the meantime, she works as a freelance editor, and part-time for a local publishing house. 

Fantastic Writer's Salon

What can we, as writers, learn from a fanciful children’s movie?

At the height of Potter Mania, 6 hr after Deathly Hallows was published, it sold 5000 books a sec. Deathly Hallows sold more books in the first day than any other author that YEAR.

Fantastic Beasts, Rowling’s first foray into screenplay writing, grossed $814 million worldwide. The film was nominated for 5 BAFTAs (British equivalent of an Academy Award), including Best British Film, winning Best Production Design. In this country the movie took two Academy Awards,winning Best Costume Design, and becoming the first Wizarding World film to win an Academy Award.

Clearly, J. K. Rowling resonates with a large audience of people. I believe that's because she is one of the most complex and layered writers of our time. I mean to convince you today that the more you dig into her work, the deeper the meaning, the more complex and interesting her work becomes.

Join us on Sunday, November 18 to watch the second installment in the Fantastic Beasts saga, Crimes of Grindelwald. We will hold a writer's salon at 2:30 pm at Nancy Brehm's house, 925 Sinagua Heights Dr. in Flagstaff.

I'll give a brief presentation about the peculiarities of Rowling's writing and things to consider while watching the movie. I'll cover how Rowling hooks you with:

• Genre Bending Worldbuilding
• Confirming your Postmodern Beliefs
• Masterful Narrative Slow Release.

Rowling has been called the most important Christian writer since C. S. Lewis. I'll talk about how she delivers meaning:

• Meaningful Resonance
• Ring Composition
• Subversion of stories we share in common
• Characters and elements that symbolize larger concepts
• Literary Alchemy
• Dante's Divine Comedy

At 4 or 4:30 pm we will watch the movie together.

After the movie we'll meet back at Nancy's house for BBQ sandwiches, while we discuss the film.

Please RSVP at authorCAlexSmith@gmail.com if you think you're coming so we can get an approximate head count. You can let us know right up to and including Sunday the 18th.