Kidding Ourselves: Exploring the Wonder and Woe of Childhood in Writing

Childhood is a time when the world is entirely unfamiliar. We are learning, growing, and gathering experiences that impact how we view and participate in the world. When writing from a child's perspective, it is easy to fall into traps of creating work that is overly sentimental, contrived, or downright clueless. To combat this; we must re-enter our own childhood memories and attempt to reimagine the mundanity of our world. We will revisit places from our youth; schools, grocery stores, swimming pools. We will reconvene our childhood notions of authority figures, teachers and bus drivers and college students. Most importantly–we will get in touch with our childhood selves. Together we will look at story models, discuss the artistic process, and practice writing the specific experience of childhood in a way that honors the fascination and fears of early development. There will be a series of prompts, and attendees should anticipate spending a significant amount of time both in discussion and writing.

Bio: Tucker Leighty-Phillips is the author of Maybe This Is What I Deserve (Split/Lip Press, 2023). He was raised in Laurel County, Kentucky, and much of his writing centers around Appalachia, poverty, and childhood. His writing has been published in The Offing, The Adroit Journal, BOOTH, and has been twice-anthologized in Best Microfiction. He works for Appalshop, an Appalachian Arts & Media organization, and lives in Central Pennsylvania. His website is TuckerLP.net.