PEN in the Community: Fairfax High School, Fall 2017

For​ ​our 2017-2018 PEN in the Community writing residencies,​ ​author Chris​ ​L. Terry created curricula involving topics such as immigration, persecution, and assimilation to allow increased empathy to inform students’ own storytelling.

In Fall 2017, these multigenerational workshops were informed and taught by Peter H.Z. Hsu and Shawna Kenney. On December 1, Mr. Miller’s 6th Period English 9​ ​class (Fairfax High School) and Freda Mohr Multipurpose Senior Center students shared their creative workin a final reading to celebrate the printing of a shared anthology, Telling Our Story.

PEN in the Community is generously supported by the California Arts Council, California State Library, and City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

View photos from the event:

Chris Terry Guest Speaker Fairfax H.S.

Chris Terry Guest Speaker Freda Mohr With Student Louise Dorfman

Fairfax & Freda Mohr Fall Reading

Teaching Artist Peter HZ Hsu With Student Ola Obiekea

Peter H.Z. Hsu (youth workshops) was a 2017 PEN USA Emerging Voices Fellow. His fiction has most recently appeared in Flapperhouse, Your Impossible Voice, and F(r)iction Online. He is working on a short story collection about the apocalypse.

Shawna Kenney ​(senior workshops) is the author of four books and her work has appeared in The New York Times, the LA Weekly, KCET, Ms., and Vice, among other other outlets. She also teaches creative writing in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

PEN in the Community is generously supported by the California Arts Council, California State Library, and City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.