Presented by our current artist-in-residence, Writer and Teaching Artist Christine Koubek Flynn, join us for a reading from her novel-in-progress, "A Baby from the Back Row," followed by a writing craft discussion on imagination and the transformation of personal experience in fiction and memoir. Bring a notebook to respond to two writing prompts that will help you generate a story idea from your own life.
Christine's novel-in-progress was inspired by her birth mother and the more than two-million American girls who were sent to homes for unwed mothers in the decades before Roe v. Wade. Their children were often relegated to the back rows of maternity wards, beginning life as the cause of grief and shame for one family, and a proposed solution to it for another. An essay she wrote about being found by her birth mother won an American Society of Journalists and Authors’ Arlene Award for Work that Makes a Difference and became her novel’s genesis.
About Christine Koubek Flynn:
Christine K. Flynn's stories have appeared in The Washington Post, Poets & Writers, Electric Literature, Bethesda, Chautauqua, and Coastal Living among others. Her nonfiction work has received awards from the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and her novel-in-progress—which she's working on while in residence—received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation as well as residencies from the Ragdale Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University. Christine enjoys working with people to help shape their stories and has taught workshops for mid-Atlantic literary centers and the Armed Services Arts Partnership.
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