Girl Walks Into a Trope: Comedy and the Subversion of Stereotype

Girl Walks Into a Trope: Comedy and the Subversion of Stereotype with Kristen Ritter

Saturdays, March 12 & 19, 2022
3 PM – 5 PM AKDT
Via Zoom
$70 Members | $85 Non-Members

This class takes place on more than one date (March 12 & March 19) but must be registered for as a single class.

Tropes, at their core, are just narrative patterns. But some tropes are so subtle, so complex, and so deeply embedded in our narratives that we aren’t even aware we’re filling our stories with them. This class will look at six character tropes in young adult fiction: The Merry Victim, The Low-Grade Crime Boss, The Adorable Neurotic, The Silent Comedian, The Little Rascal, and the Mirror Image. By exploring these character patterns, we can study the messages implicit in the content we create, and practice writing stories that are refreshingly dynamic and new. This class is perfect for writers of young adult fiction as well as anyone who wants to improve the way they approach characterization.

Bio:
Kristen Ritter is a playwright and storyteller living and working in Anchorage, Alaska. She holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA from Vassar College. Awards and honors include the Alaska State Council on the Arts Literary Award, a Kennedy Center Playwriting Intensive residency, the Vermont Ham Humor Award, a finalist place for the Hunger Mountain Chapbook Series, and a Brazilian literature research grant.

She was a member of the 2021 Alaska Writers Workshop Residency with Theater Alaska, and her play, Nefarious, is scheduled to have its first production in spring of 2022.

She has given multiple public presentations, most recently in October on the Alaska Writers Guild panel, “Gender and Genre”, in partnership with Alaska Book Week. Other speaking engagements include a presentation on gender diversity at the Matsu Young Writers Conference, a panel on writing outside gender stereotypes moderated by Laurie Halse Anderson at the Alaska Writers Conference, and a lecture on women in graphic novels at a Vermont College of Fine Arts graduating residency.

She hopes to use her storytelling to talk about complex societal norms through a comedy lens.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81155780897?pwd=NDIrdHN2eTVoTnRSMGhaamJldzVSZz09

Meeting ID: 811 5578 0897
Passcode: 959202

 

Registration: 

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED.

 

49 Writers dedicates our 2021-2022 programming season to the memory of Frank Soos (1950-2021), our 2021 Program Chair.