The Muse and the Marketplace: GrubStreet's national conference for writers

The Right to Write: Who owns the story? Stories come from different sources: dreams, overheard conversations, our own lives, watching and listening, feeling and perceiving. So, when you overhear someone’s conversation, or someone tells you about something she’s just been through, or when you suddenly feel engaged by the story of someone in the newspaper, or of a whole group of people, where do you draw the line between yours and theirs? When is the story yours, and when does it belong to someone else? What are the lines you shouldn’t cross, out of decency, respect, family loyalty, political correctness, or any other rule of civilization? All writers encounter this question. Roxana will be reading from an essay that addresses the topic and then leading a discussion of it.