Mark Nowak, an eminent writer in residence at UW, has recently started a project to help community members share their opinions about work life in Wyoming.
A series of creative writing workshops will take place both in Laramie and Cheyenne this coming February, according to the UW website. Nowak has gathered writing instructors and students in the Wyoming’s Master of Fine Arts creative writing program.
Nowak is from Buffalo, N.Y., and is the director of the graduate creative writing program at Manhattanville College. He has written several books, including “Coal Mountain Elementary” in 2009 and “Shut Up, Shut Down” in 2004. In 2010, he was granted a Guggenheim fellowship.
Nowak often speaks on the subject of global working class policies and issues. He has voiced his own opinions and knowledge on Al Jazeera, BBC World News America, BBC Radio 3, and Pacifica Radio’s “Against the Grain” lately.
According to the project’s Facebook page, “Working in Wyoming is a community-building, creative investigation of what it means to labor in Wyoming.”
Workers across southeast Wyoming from all different backgrounds will be able to interact with other community members to compose a piece of creative writing. This can be anything from a poem or a parable to a short story or piece of fiction/non-fiction.
The series of free workshops that will take place in February will allow any Wyoming worker to build and refine their personal writing skills while sharing their voices on their past, present and/or future experiences.
“We feel that this would be a great way to inspire the community of Laramie to find its creative voice, and establish a sense of identity among its workers,” Mark Lawson, a Master of Fine Arts student, said.
On Feb. 28, the Master of Arts program will host an event showcasing participants’ pieces. The intimate event will offer a powerful glimpse of what it is truly like to be employed in the state of Wyoming to the individual’s family, friends, co-workers, and the larger community present.
