Festival of Writers: surviving the American dream

Festival of writers was a great experience that brought three authors together to read from their short story compilations or books that reference the American dream in different ways. It was put together by Columbia College. The event was held at the Metro a concert venue in Wrigleyville.
The even started with quotes that were repeated in several languages followed by a reading of part of the constitution.
Randy Albers the head of Columbia College's fiction writing department gave an introduction that emphasized the power of story and action. Now in our day and age American's need a vision because we are in crisis. He said "regardless of background the american dream is about achieving happiness, and now that is hard to find so we need writer's imaginations"

First to read was Patricia McNair who read from her story collection Temple of Air. The story is about the teenage experience during the Vietnam war.

Next up to read was Heidi Durro. Her writing was said to touch on complex racial issues
She said her book is about social responsibility, and it began with a story of a real girl, it is called The Girl Who Fell From the Sky. She used her own experiences of being asked if she was black or white on the girls story to meld the issues. The girl in the story deals with a confused identity of being half black and half white, and not knowing how to identify. she writes this in the voice of an 11 year old girl, which I found really interesting as it dealed with what she went thorugh at that age.

John Sales read last from his book. It was on the Filipino American war.

All in all I found this experience an interesting way to experience education. The event was free to the public, which allowed everyone to be able to come in and experience literature and different takes on what the American life is. It allowed me to see education in different ways that take place outside of the classroom. This was very accessible. Some of the things I wish were involved was a more indepth discussion with the crowd and audience participation. I did like to see that it was all kinds of perspectives on what the american dream was, not just a white middle class american dream, but a varied response to the topic.