Join the brilliant Nichole Christian and myself at WAM-Detroit, the local incarnation of Women, Action & the Media's decentralized event series that is spotlighting the intersection of gender and media. This is your chance to connect with freelancers, journalists, activists, advocates, academics, and other leading voices in the Detroit/Ann Arbor area — for free! We'll also integrate part of our Detroit conversation into the larger WAM dialogue about "creating spaces and places where women's words matter" as it unfolds across the U.S. and Canada. Both newbies and the battle-worn, and everyone in between, are welcome. We've got to help each other out … and we're committed to having fun while we do it. (By the way, see Nichole riff on this beautifully over at Shetroit.)
Details on the Detroit events, and the online WAM! events, are below the jump. I'll see you soon.
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Happy Hour(s)
Friday, March 23, 6:00p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
Woodbridge Pub, 5169 Trumbull, Detroit
Join us for a fun, informal social gathering of media makers, activists and anyone interested in gender justice in media. Free!
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Tell the Story: Drop-in Mentoring
Saturday, March 24, 9:00a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Fourteen East Cafe, 15 East Kirby, Detroit
(in the Park Shelton Building, facing Woodward Avenue)
Free. (Though we wouldn’t turn down a cup of coffee.)
Get one-on-one feedback on how to tell the stories that need to be told — as a journalist, or as someone who gets the attention of journalists. Over a cup of chai, we might talk about how to break into freelance journalism, or how to deepen your reporting by moving into new venues or new beats. We can talk about how to get paid, or how to write an op-ed, or the more existential questions about what it means to make your life as a writer.
Have a story to tell as the source? Advocates, activists, entrepreneurs, communications directors, PR people, business owners, artists, nonprofit professionals, musicians, and others who want media coverage for their projects, clients, and issues can come on in to talk strategy for winning the interest of journalists — not just for a one-time story, but as an ongoing strategy.
Let’s hash it all out on a Saturday morning at Fourteen East Cafe. Look for the table with the “WAM” sign. Hosted by Nichole Christian and Anna Clark.
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Women Write Wikipedia: A How-To Webinar
Monday, March 26, 2012 at 2PM ET
Have you ever looked something up in the Wikipedia? Obviously, right? But: have you ever edited anything in the Wikipedia? Bet the answer is “no,” and that’s a crying shame! Wikipedia, as you know, is quickly becoming the go-to reference point for our collective history. But, over 80% of Wikipedia’s editors are men–which means that women’s opportunities to document history and knowledge are passing us by.
In this hour-long online workshop, WAM!Bassador of Technology Deanna Zandt will teach you the basics of editing a Wikipedia page, as well as the cultural norms that you’ll need to know to be a good Wikipedian. It’s time to make sure that all genders are represented in our brave new history!
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Celebrating Women in Hip-Hop
Tue, March 27, 9p.m. – Wed, March 28, 2a.m.
The Old Miami
3930 Cass Avenue, Detroit
Every Tuesday, the 5e Gallery hosts The Foundation, a series featuring the hottest female performers and producers in hip-hop. Black Maria and Rated M take the stage on the 27th, and WAM!Detroit participants are invited to the show. Live-streaming at http://liquidflowradio.com
This event is part of WAM! It Yourself 2012, a multi-city event by Women, Action & the Media. For more information about events happening in Detroit and all over the world, check here or email Lexi.
Your Hosts:
Nichole Christian is an old-school word girl returning to the bliss of her craft after more than 20 years as a staff reporter from some of the nation’s top newspapers including The New York Times, The Wall Street and Time magazine. She was among the New York Times reporters who produced “Portraits of Grief,” chronicling the lives of people killed in the September 11th attacks. Though Nichole has moved from the front lines of story making, she continues to practice her love of storytelling through collaborations with artists, entrepreneurs, non-profits and other social doers looking for creative ways to be seen and be heard. When she’s not shaping the stories of others, Nichole is hard at work sparring with blank pages, breathing life into her own poems and essays. Nichole is a featured essayist in the anthology “Dear Dad: Reflections of Fatherhood,” a 2011 publication from Chicago’s Westside Press.
Anna Clark is an independent journalist living in Detroit. She writes reported news features, longform nonfiction, and book reviews, and she has an omnivorous range: she most often covers literature (especially international literature), culture, health, prisons, gender, sports, and media stories. Her writing has been published in The Guardian, The American Prospect, Salon, The Nation, The Daily Beast, Grantland, The Detroit Free Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Review, and other publications. She is currently a political media correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review. In 2011, she was a Fulbright Fellow in Nairobi, Kenya, where she focused on creative writing, and she also has been a fellow with the Peter Jennings Center for Journalists and the Constitution. She writes the literary blog Isak (www.annaclark.net) and is a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Anna is a writer-in-residence with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project, and on Thursday evenings, she facilitates a theater workshop at a men's prison in Macomb County, Michigan. She graduated from the University of Michigan's Residential College with highest honors, and from Warren Wilson College's MFA Program for Writers, where she practiced (and practiced…) fiction.