I’m pleased to be part of the 2022 AWP panel “Noir as an Agent for Social Change: A Look at Transgressive Genre Fiction” with panelists Steph Cha, Jay Gertzman, Elizabeth Hand, and moderator Art Taylor.

The panel can be accessed on Thursday, March 24, at 9 a.m., via the AWP22 Virtual Conference Platform (registration required).

Here’s the event description:

Should people dare to dream with the forces of the world allied against them? Though “noir” has morphed into a buzzword for any darkly themed thriller, its traditional elements are more specific: an outsider perspective, economic insecurity, systemic injustice, distrust of the status quo, existential despair. Five fiction writers and critics discuss the roots of noir and how writers today, both genre and literary, can build on and transform this tradition to explore similar themes today.