Are you a veteran?

Have you ever felt a gap between vets and civilians?

Your story can help bridge the gap, and we can help teach you to tell it.

Register for the inaugural UNC Veterans Writing Workshop!

You are invited to a two-part event on April 27, 2019. The first part of the event is an open-to-the-public discussion, where four 1990s/GWOT vets will discuss how American popular culture has influenced the civilian-military divide in their personal experience. The current panelists are:

  • Joe Kassabian (author of The Hooligans of Kandahar, host of the Lions Led by Donkeys Podcast)
  • Eric Burke (Civil War historian and OIF/OEF enlisted infantryman)
  • Kate Dahlstrand (Civil War/Reconstruction historian, director of UGA’s Student Veteran Oral History Project, GWOT enlisted combat vet)
  • Michelle Moyd (East African military historian, early/mid ’90s USAF officer)

After the panel discussion, all workshop participants will receive a free catered lunch, courtesy of UNC Humanities for the Public Good. Then you’ll transition into a writing workshop, with writing prompts partly-inspired by the public discussion. The workshop will feature trained facilitators (most of whom are military affiliated) who will help you learn narrative and story-telling skills. If you’re proud of the stories that we help you tell, there is a possibility that our collaboration can continue, building towards publication in an online archive or even an edited book!

Your POC for any questions is co-organizer Davis Winkie. He can be reached via email at jdavisw@live.unc.edu. He’s pretty responsive, but don’t hesitate to follow up on anything that goes 24 hours without a response.

 

Location: UNC-CH Campus, Carolina Union, Room 3408 (Free parking available on Stadium Drive on weekends)

Date: 4/27/19

Time: 10:30 AM – 4:00 PM

Price: Free

Administrators: Davis Winkie, Paul Blom

Point of Contact: Davis Winkie, jdavisw@live.unc.edu

 

Event Sponsors: Humanities for the Public Good; The Graduate School

Support also provided by: The College of Arts & Sciences, Division of Fine Arts & Humanities; The College of Arts & Sciences, Division of Social Sciences & Global Programs; Carolina Veterans Resource Center; Department of English and Comparative Literature; Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense; Department of History; Center for the Study of the American South

 

To register for this event, click here.

Note: Registration is only required for the workshop portion of the event. If you are a member of the public interested in attending the discussion panel, you do not need to register in advance.

 

For more information and regular updates, check us out on Twitter and Facebook.

 

Check out our resources and help us spread the word about this event! Download and share Flyer 1 and Flyer 2!

 

About the Event Organizers:

Davis Winkie is a military history Ph.D. student at UNC. He studies America’s memory of its 20th century wars, with a particular focus on war movies made during the 1950s and 60s. His research also explores how movies and other popular narratives of war potentially affected Vietnam-era service members. Additionally, Davis is a soldier in the NC Army National Guard, and he will commission as a second lieutenant this summer. Davis will be moderating the panel discussion portion of the event.

Paul Blom is a second-year PhD student in English and Comparative Literature, whose research focuses on the ethical and political implications of depicting trauma in literature. This research is partially motivated by his own brother’s combat experiences in Iraq from 2003-2004. Paul has taught and worked with underserved populations overseas and currently serves as a Teaching Fellow at UNC. He is the Fiction Editor for The Carolina Quarterly literary magazine and regularly writes scripts for promotional videos and short documentary and narrative films. He has extensive experience teaching composition, writing, and rhetoric.