Reading and Craft Lecture by Naheed Phiroze Patel

The Creative Writing Program at UGA and the Willson Center are delighted to host Willson Center Short Term Visiting Fellow Naheed Phiroze Patel. 

Patel is a graduate of the MFA program at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her writing has appeared in the New England Review, The Guardian, Lit Hub, Poets & Writers, Chicago Review of Books, HuffPost, Scroll.in, BOMB Magazine, Public Books, PEN America, The Rumpus, Asymptote Journal and elsewhere. Her debut novel, "Mirror Made of Rain" was published by Unnamed Press in May 2022 and is praised by NPR as “a personal, empathetic view on mothers who society has deemed 'failures.’” A review in The Los Angeles Review of Books says, “Despite its disturbing theme of abusive relationships, the writing positively shines, offering a poised multigenerational story about growing up, loss, escapism, and migration.” The book was an NPR Book of the Day and listed as a Most Anticipated Book by The Millions, LitHub, Debutiful, Buzzfeed and Ms. Magazine. Her fiction, essays and interviews have been published in The Guardian, HuffPost, LitHub, BOMB Magazine, EuropeNow, New England Review, PEN America, thewire.in, Scroll.in, Asymptote Journal, and Michigan Quarterly Review. 

Her public craft talk, "Should Your Protagonist be Likable: The Literary Significance of Writing Unlikeable Women," will draw from her experiences of writing women characters who are often dismissed by the literary world for being unpopular. Patel considers this radical, subversive, and meaningful. She will draw examples of similar transgressive women from literary history and provide guidance on how to write compelling fiction by hinging on such characters.

A reading, an audience interaction and a book signing will follow this talk.