I’ll Show You Mine: A Sex Writing Symposium

A Sex Writing Symposium by the University of East Anglia is taking place in Norwich on Thursday 6th June 2019 is calling for papers.

I’ll Show You Mine: A Sex Writing Symposium began as a desire to have a conversation about the role of sex and sexuality in contemporary literature. We wish to interrogate the culture of sex writing, host discussions around gender, representation, transgression, and explore ideas of shame, obscenity and censorship. Bringing together some of our most exciting writers and thinkers, I’ll Show You Mine seeks to give voice to those things we think late at night while buried in books, ask those difficult questions, satiate appetites.

The deadline for submissions is Friday 3rd May 2019.

The symposium organisers are calling for (15-minute) papers and creative-critical contributions on any aspect of reading or writing sex in fiction, non-fiction and poetry. They particularly encourage and welcome papers from marginalised voices: Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME), LGBTQIA+, enby/gender-queer/gender-fluid, neurodiverse and working class individuals.

Papers could be on:

• Issues of technical representation; the lexicon of sex
• Distinctions of genre and form
• Is sex something we can put into words?
• Intersectional representations of body, gender, sexuality
• Sex writing as a political, transgressive act
• The role of the reader
• The history of obscenity and censorship
• Sex writing inside and outside of mainstream publishing
• How to write sex in the internet age

Abstracts of 200–300 words, together with an accompanying short CV, should be submitted to James Smart and Melissa Wan at showyouminesymposium@gmail.com by Friday 3 May 2019.

The organisers would emphasise that this is a creative writing and literature symposium, organised by students on the Creative Writing MA at UEA, but we also welcome papers which have a critical foundation. As this is a non-commercial, student-led symposium, no financial support for travel or accommodation is available for those presenting papers and we ask that if necessary contributors explore funding opportunities at their home institutions.

Symposium booking will open in April 2019.

Find out more at the links below:

showyouminesymposium.com

showyouminesymposium@gmail.com

@show_you_mine