Novels Beyond Market Logic by Benedict Nguyễn

Workshop Description: ‘There needs to be an exciting incident in the first ten pages!’ ‘Nobody wants a book about the present moment—readers want escape!’ These craft-ish truisms are often repeated under the guise of making a story ‘better.’ But for whom? In this talk, we’ll trouble these and other market-driven platitudes in the direction of more daring and capacious narrative forms.

About the Presenter: Benedict Nguyễn (she/her) is a #freelanceflailing dancer, writer, and creative producer who's taught workshops for AAWW, McCormack Writing Center, and at Louis Place. She’s danced in recent projects by Sally Silvers, Kris Seto, Monstah Black, among other choreographers, appeared in the short film “Don’t F*ck with Bà” (2024, dir. Sally Tran), and began developing the dance theater work “DEFENSE” with Sugar Vendil in 2025. Her writing on labor and culture has appeared in The Baffler, BOMB Magazine, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Review of Books, and AAWW’s The Margins. A Publishers…