Telling Our 2020 Stories: Personal Essay Workshop

Telling Our 2020 Stories

From the coronavirus pandemic to the Beirut blasts to the U.S. elections, this year has been intense. AANM wants to document your 2020 story, and help you tell it. It could be a personal essay about dealing with lockdown, a poem about Lebanon, perhaps a recipe for a dish that gave you comfort, or something else.

This November, artist-in-residence Zahir Janmohamed will give three online interactive writing workshops to help you complete your first draft. The first will focus on personal essay writing, the second on poetry and visual storytelling, and the final one on food writing! Each workshop will feature guest speakers from the metro Detroit area who are experts in their field. The workshops will conclude with an online public reading on Monday, Nov. 30 in which participants will be invited to share their work.

8 – 9:30 p.m. EST Monday, Nov. 9, 2020
Workshop 1: Personal Essay Writing with Zahir Janmohamed

Online via Zoom
Free with RSVP

Zahir Janmohamed leads this workshop that will discuss the various styles of essay writing, from memoir to cultural commentary to reportage, go over writing techniques, and explore ways to get your work published.

Other workshops in this series:

Nov. 16: Workshop 2: Poetry & Visual Storytelling with Zahir Janmohamed + Guests Joumana Altallal & Razi Jafri

Nov. 23: Workshop 3: Food Writing with Zahir Janmohamed + Guests Serena Maria Daniels, Brittany Hutson, Nargis Hakim Rahman & Fred Sareini


Zahir Janmohamed is a Zell Writing fellow at the University of Michigan where he received his MFA in creative writing and earned awards for his fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and playwriting. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Guernica, and many other publications. He is also the co-founder of the James Beard nominated food podcast Racist Sandwich.


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Due to the pandemic, we have been closed to the public since March 13. Closed doors mean that our earned revenue streams have dried up, and corporate funds have been pivoted to assist with COVID-19 relief or for their own financial survival. We are looking forward to the day we can safely reopen, but until then, we need your support.

Your donation today will help us weather this crisis.

  • November 9, 2020 8:00 pm - 9:30 pm
  • 8:00 pm