Afternoon Craft Conversation with Marie Mutsuki Mockett

DATE & TIME:

Wednesday, May 6, 2020 – 2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

LOCATION:

Online
https://stmarys-ca.zoom.us/meeting/register/vp0qde6upz8sb00VbumXa71hDPDicEk64A

DESCRIPTION:

THEN WE CAME TO THE END

Whether your parents read you bedtime stories, or you watched a lot of television growing up, (or both), you were unknowingly imprinting on story structures that reflect the culture you are from. What’s more, the ending of those stories taught you to feel that a certain kind of resolution just seems more complete. In this talk, we will take a look at western fairy tales and eastern fairy tales. We will see over and over how the stories overlap, but resolve differently, reflecting very different worldviews. The beauty of this kind of story analysis is that it can not only give us an appreciation for stories outside the usual grab bag of patterns we turn to, but also may open us up to take greater creative risks, and expand our understanding of what it means to be human.

Marie Mutsuki Mockett’s memoir, Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye, examines grief against the backdrop of the 2011 Great East Earthquake in Japan and was a finalist for the 2016 PEN Open Book Award, Indies Choice Best Book for Nonfiction and the Northern California Book Award for Creative Nonfiction. Her new work, American Harvest: God, Country and Farming in the Heartland, forthcoming from Graywolf in April, 2020, follows her journey through seven heartland states in the company of evangelical Christian harvesters, and examines role of GMOs, God, agriculture, and race in society.