A WCU Public Lecture Report from Annie Trinh’s “Fiction Writing: Point of View and Voice”

To run the World Class University FIB Unpad 2022 agenda, a public lecture with Annie Trinh as a guest lecturer was held on Monday, October 17, 2022, through a hybrid meeting. This activity was attended by Unpad English Studies students because it is part of the Creative Writing course, as well as students from other study programs and universities.

Annie Trinh received her master’s degree in fiction from the University of Kansas and currently teaches in the English Department at the University of Nevada at Reno. A VONA and Kundiman fellow, she has had and will have her writing published in Oyster River Pages, Litro Magazine, Emrys Journal Online, Sycamore Review, Passages North, and elsewhere.

In Annie Trinh’s class, we explored the choice and use of words to tell a story. We learned that a character can be recognized by the way they convey an event or experience and also through their point of view. Annie explained that the use of certain pronouns can effectively change the feel of a narrative, and knowing this allowed us to write confidently and more organizedly.

We learned that in narratives describing historical events, an important strategy to adapt is to focus the storyline on the characters’ point of view and how they react to the events. Annie’s class taught us how to provide context without being too wordy and spark curiosity in the reader without confusion.
Writer: FIB Media Team
Translator: Firda Khoirunnisa