The U.S. Embassy is pleased to announce the visit of award-winning writer, development worker, activist, and artist, Ming Holden from March 10-14, 2014. Holden will meet with local writers, civil society, youth and others in Paramaribo, Brokopondo and Nickerie to share her experience using writing as tool to empower, heal and transform communities. Ms. Holden will lead workshops with various groups, in which she will share the potential of creative writing to be a powerful tool for women’s advancement and equality.
On Thursday, March 13, Ms. Holden will lead a public lecture and discussion at the University Guesthouse entitled ‘Creative Expression as a Tool for Women’s Advancement and Equality.’ This event is free and open to the general public and press. Doors open at 6:00pm with the presentation beginning at 6:30pm.
A creative writer, artist, and international development worker, Ming Holden founded the Survival Girls, a theater group for young Congolese women in the slums of Nairobi. Her writing about the experience won both an AWP Intro Award for Nonfiction and USAID’s “Frontiers in Development” worldwide essay competition. (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mentions The Survival Girls in the intro to the USAID book.)
Ming served as the Mongolian Writers Union’s first-ever International Relations Advisor during her year as a Henry Luce Scholar in Mongolia and worked for the formation of a Mongolia PEN Center. While an undergraduate at Brown University, she co-founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Brown Literary Review. She went on to be the first Master of Fine Arts candidate to win the Herman Wells Graduate Fellowship, Indiana University’s most prestigious award, designated for “leadership abilities, character, social consciousness, and generosity of spirit.”
Ming has done nonprofit work in Russia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Mongolia, Kenya, and China. Visit her website at www.mingholden.com and follow her on Twitter at @minglishmuffin.
