Do you try make sense of your experiences through stories? Do you have one to tell? Are you curious about the world and all its fascinatingly weird and wonderful people? Would you like to pass off your nosiness as art? You might like creative nonfiction! 

In this course, we will read and write into the ever-evolving, flexible, and many-tentacled genre of creative nonfiction. We will read broadly across popular subgenres, including personal essay, memoir, literary journalism, lyric essays, and flash nonfiction. From these readings, we will draw inspiration for our own writing, as well as an understanding of craft in action and vocabulary with which to discuss this form. We will learn about such foundational concepts as scene, summary, description, dialogue, subjects and subjectivity, exposition, analysis, voice, tone, and style, and we will apply these concepts in our own writing and revisions as well as our feedback for peer writing in workshop.  

In workshop, you will lead discussions about your writing to grow your work closer to your own artistic vision, and the class will enter into thoughtful, tactful, honest dialogue with you to help imagine the ways you might achieve that vision. This workshop structure is adapted from Felicia Rose Chavez’s The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop with the aim of creating a space that is community-oriented, inclusive, and anti-oppressive. We will also expand our awareness of the contemporary nonfiction landscape through completing a literary journals exploration project. The course will culminate in a portfolio of revised work.