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, students will consider, discuss, 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 which we will draw inspiration for our own writing, as well as a sense of craft in action and vocabulary with which to discuss this work. Students will learn about such foundational concepts as scene, summary, description, dialogue, subjects and subjectivity, exposition, analysis, voice, tone, and style, and will apply these concepts in their own writing and revisions as well as their feedback for peer writing in workshop.  

In workshop, individual students will lead discussions about their pieces in order to grow their work closer to their own artistic vision, and the class will enter into thoughtful, tactful, honest dialogue with the writer to help the imagine ways they 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. Students will also expand their awareness of the contemporary nonfiction landscape through completing a literary journals exploration project. The course will culminate in a portfolio of revised work.