Read the topics below and if one of them appeals to your organization, click here for contact information. I am also willing to develop a new topic or workshop tailored to your organizations needs.
Speaking Topics
TOPIC: An Evening With Angela Jackson-Brown
Description: Angela Jackson-Brown reads a selection, or a series of themed selections from one of her fiction books or her book of poetry and then takes questions from the audience.
TOPIC: A Conversation with Angela Jackson-Brown
Description: Angela Jackson-Brown is placed in conversation with an interviewer of the host’s choice on the range of subjects addressed in her work, and then takes questions from the audience.
TOPIC: Revisiting the Creation of When Stars Rain Down
Description: In this lecture, Angela Jackson-Brown discusses her new novel, When Stars Rain Down and how she came to write it. She will discuss the research involved to write it and the complexities of revisiting such a volatile time in history during such a volatile time in history.
TOPIC: Literary Activism: Using Our Voices To Promote and Inspire Change
Description: From the time Angela Jackson-Brown was a little girl, she remembered her Daddy encouraging her to use her voice for change. “Use the talents you were born with to help others,” he would say, and although it took her a while to grow into that person, now, Jackson-Brown cannot imagine social change and educating readers not playing a part in her writing and her speaking. Whenever possible, she tries to share that mantra with her students. In this lecture, Angela gives advice to other aspiring writers on how they can use their writing talent to help bring change to the world. “One word at a time,” Jackson-Brown often tells her creative writing students. “With just one word at a time, you can help stop wars and eradicate hunger. It might start in your literary works, but it can have ripple effects that extend to the real world in ways you can’t even imagine.”
TOPIC: Writing While Black: Listening to the Ancestors, Not the Critics
Description: Angela Jackson-Brown shares with the audience about how she always knew she wanted to be a writer, from when her daddy, M.C. Jackson, first told her, after she read him one of her stories that, “Someday, Little Girl, she was going to be a great writer.” But the more Jackson-Brown read, the more she wondered if her daddy was wrong because none of the books she read at school at Black characters or Black writers. It wasn’t until she was in the third grade and her first Black teacher, Mrs. Kennedy gave her a copy of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and assured her that yes, indeed, Black people DID and COULD write books. From there, Angela went through a series of ups and downs with her writing, but she never forgot the voices of her daddy and Mrs. Kennedy. Angela closes this discussion by sharing with the audience her latest work.
WORKSHOP TOPICS
TOPIC: How to Create Powerful and Moving Scenes
Description: The most powerful short stories and novels are built on a foundation of great scenes. Scenes are the building blocks necessary to tell a story in such a way that the reader is compelled to stay in your imaginary world as long as the story lasts. In this class, Angela Jackson-Brown will lead the writers through a discussion of how to get in and out of a scene efficiently. She will explain how rooting our most emotional moments in scenes can provide powerful, poignant experiences in fiction. Participants will see how scenes can help the reader to understand the characters and the plot, and see that without great scenes, writers are left with a series of incidents that have no real literary value.
TOPIC: I’m Done Writing, What Now?: Revising that Completed Short Story or Novel
Description: You finished a draft of your novel! Congratulations! That’s HUGE. So...now what? Now, you revise. You know that writing is revising, of course, but that doesn’t mean that the revision process isn’t often daunting and mysterious. In this class, designed for writers who have a completed draft of a novel, Angela Jackson-Brown will guide students through a series of exercises that will help them learn specific tools, ranging from note-making techniques to scene-by-scene analysis, to help them successfully shepherd their books from first draft to final.
Where are we?: Creating Memorable Setting
TOPIC: Where Are We?: Writing Setting that Resonates Off the Page
Description: The setting of the story often operates as an extra antagonist in a story. If we, as writers, handle setting appropriately, we can often reveal things about our characters that only setting will allow. The Wizard of Oz was a tremendous canvas for the reader to see just what Dorothy was made of, not to mention her friends the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion. In this course, Angela Jackson-Brown will show attendees the importance of setting and how to use it effectively in their own stories.
TOPIC: The Story that Grief Built
Description: There’s an old saying that says, “Turn your mess into a message.” That is one way creative writers can think about writing their own story. In this workshop, Angela Jackson-Brown will help the attendees dig deep and pull up the pain of their past and present, in a way that will lead to their healing and that of their readership. Writers are constantly wading through their own emotional experiences in order to create rich, multi-dimensional characters. This workshop will focus on ways to process their grief and successfully put it on the page.
Speaking Topics
TOPIC: An Evening With Angela Jackson-Brown
Description: Angela Jackson-Brown reads a selection, or a series of themed selections from one of her fiction books or her book of poetry and then takes questions from the audience.
TOPIC: A Conversation with Angela Jackson-Brown
Description: Angela Jackson-Brown is placed in conversation with an interviewer of the host’s choice on the range of subjects addressed in her work, and then takes questions from the audience.
TOPIC: Revisiting the Creation of When Stars Rain Down
Description: In this lecture, Angela Jackson-Brown discusses her new novel, When Stars Rain Down and how she came to write it. She will discuss the research involved to write it and the complexities of revisiting such a volatile time in history during such a volatile time in history.
TOPIC: Literary Activism: Using Our Voices To Promote and Inspire Change
Description: From the time Angela Jackson-Brown was a little girl, she remembered her Daddy encouraging her to use her voice for change. “Use the talents you were born with to help others,” he would say, and although it took her a while to grow into that person, now, Jackson-Brown cannot imagine social change and educating readers not playing a part in her writing and her speaking. Whenever possible, she tries to share that mantra with her students. In this lecture, Angela gives advice to other aspiring writers on how they can use their writing talent to help bring change to the world. “One word at a time,” Jackson-Brown often tells her creative writing students. “With just one word at a time, you can help stop wars and eradicate hunger. It might start in your literary works, but it can have ripple effects that extend to the real world in ways you can’t even imagine.”
TOPIC: Writing While Black: Listening to the Ancestors, Not the Critics
Description: Angela Jackson-Brown shares with the audience about how she always knew she wanted to be a writer, from when her daddy, M.C. Jackson, first told her, after she read him one of her stories that, “Someday, Little Girl, she was going to be a great writer.” But the more Jackson-Brown read, the more she wondered if her daddy was wrong because none of the books she read at school at Black characters or Black writers. It wasn’t until she was in the third grade and her first Black teacher, Mrs. Kennedy gave her a copy of I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and assured her that yes, indeed, Black people DID and COULD write books. From there, Angela went through a series of ups and downs with her writing, but she never forgot the voices of her daddy and Mrs. Kennedy. Angela closes this discussion by sharing with the audience her latest work.
WORKSHOP TOPICS
TOPIC: How to Create Powerful and Moving Scenes
Description: The most powerful short stories and novels are built on a foundation of great scenes. Scenes are the building blocks necessary to tell a story in such a way that the reader is compelled to stay in your imaginary world as long as the story lasts. In this class, Angela Jackson-Brown will lead the writers through a discussion of how to get in and out of a scene efficiently. She will explain how rooting our most emotional moments in scenes can provide powerful, poignant experiences in fiction. Participants will see how scenes can help the reader to understand the characters and the plot, and see that without great scenes, writers are left with a series of incidents that have no real literary value.
TOPIC: I’m Done Writing, What Now?: Revising that Completed Short Story or Novel
Description: You finished a draft of your novel! Congratulations! That’s HUGE. So...now what? Now, you revise. You know that writing is revising, of course, but that doesn’t mean that the revision process isn’t often daunting and mysterious. In this class, designed for writers who have a completed draft of a novel, Angela Jackson-Brown will guide students through a series of exercises that will help them learn specific tools, ranging from note-making techniques to scene-by-scene analysis, to help them successfully shepherd their books from first draft to final.
Where are we?: Creating Memorable Setting
TOPIC: Where Are We?: Writing Setting that Resonates Off the Page
Description: The setting of the story often operates as an extra antagonist in a story. If we, as writers, handle setting appropriately, we can often reveal things about our characters that only setting will allow. The Wizard of Oz was a tremendous canvas for the reader to see just what Dorothy was made of, not to mention her friends the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion. In this course, Angela Jackson-Brown will show attendees the importance of setting and how to use it effectively in their own stories.
TOPIC: The Story that Grief Built
Description: There’s an old saying that says, “Turn your mess into a message.” That is one way creative writers can think about writing their own story. In this workshop, Angela Jackson-Brown will help the attendees dig deep and pull up the pain of their past and present, in a way that will lead to their healing and that of their readership. Writers are constantly wading through their own emotional experiences in order to create rich, multi-dimensional characters. This workshop will focus on ways to process their grief and successfully put it on the page.