Writer Talk: Angela Flury, Berlin Cards & Crimes

About

August 10th 2017, 7pm, SomoS artist-in-residence Angela Flury will read from the manuscript of her debut novel Berlin Cards & Crimes, which she is writing in and about Berlin. Flury, also a professor of English and world literature at Depauw University, will take the opportunity to discuss her creative writing process and look at contemporary definitions of expanded writing, including issues that both she and her protagonist are intimately aware of—issues like the challenging and rewarding nature of translations, of creative writing, and the adventure and stimulation of the walking novel and psychogeography as a genre.

With a background in literary criticism, Angela is unafraid of analysis and equally ready to apply this type of conceptual legwork to her own creative process, viewing the writing of a novel itself as a sort of inquiry into the method of creativity itself. She finds a distinct kinship and resonance with methods often employed by contemporary artists who are unafraid to venture into fields of contemporary philosophy. She uses these associations to drive her own exploration of what it means to dissolve boundaries between the critical and the creative in writing and literature

In her own words:

"I practice writing as an experiment (from the Latin verb experīrī to try) and consider the novel an experimental outcome. At SomoS, a space primarily reserved for visual and performance art, I am freer to consider my creative-critical impetus, the vehemence behind the desire to fill out the pages constituting a novel, a genre that has seen its share of experimentation over the past three centuries.

Reveling in language for language’s sake, in the manner of a medium offering endless possibilities, for example, strikes me as creative, understanding whose discourse influences the way I want to write and why, as critical. Writing a novel for me is a way to think about aspects of literature that intrigue me, perhaps also repel me.

My novel, Berlin Cards & Crimes, takes place in a contemporary Berlin; my American protagonist Johanna is a translator who moves from neighborhood to neighborhood, taking in each one a room in an already established household. The neighborhoods—Kreuzberg, Charlottenburg, Prenzlauer Berg, Neukoelln—comprise the chapters of the book."

-- Angela Flury, professor, writer

Angela Flury reads from her latest work and discusses the creative writing process:

Date: August 10th, 7pm

Location: Somos Kottbusser Damm 95, 1st floor