This introductory course will offer you the chance to write Nonfiction of several kinds, as well as expose you to a critical vocabulary of the genre, some stylistic techniques and forms found within it, and diverse readings within and at the boundaries of it. You will engage in textual analysis, learn to locate readings in a larger literary and literary/historical context, and begin to develop a sense of process and revision within the genre. A number of different writerly approaches to fact-based narrative will be explored and examined in this gateway-to-Nonfiction survey, through the work of such writers as Joy Williams, Akhil Sharma, Yiyun Li, Uwem Akpan, Cathy Park Hong, Osip Mandelstam, Judith Thurman, Phillip Lopate, Carmen Maria Machado, Vladimir Nabokov, Adrienne Kennedy, and others. You will get a chance, in course assignments, to try out for yourselves many of their approaches.

In the introductory class students explore a range of contemporary nonfiction styles and narrative strategies, focusing on elements of craft while learning how to choose a subject, structure a piece, workshop and revise. Attention is paid to developing one’s individual voice and basic skills (some of them involving reportage and research). Nonfiction students may (depending on the instructor) write in a variety of modes – creative nonfiction, essays, memoir, poetic texts, cultural critiques, or hybrid work that can’t easily be categorized. Students will read provocative nonfiction works throughout the semester. No prerequisites.

In the introductory class students explore a range of contemporary nonfiction styles and narrative strategies, focusing on elements of craft while learning how to choose a subject, structure a piece, workshop and revise. Attention is paid to developing one’s individual voice and basic skills (some of them involving reportage and research). Nonfiction students may (depending on the instructor) write in a variety of modes – creative nonfiction, essays, memoir, poetic texts, cultural critiques, or hybrid work that can’t easily be categorized. Students will read provocative nonfiction works throughout the semester. No prerequisites.

How do we construct our writerly selves and spaces, at desks, in communities, and facing the abyss of the blank page? This introductory nonfiction workshop aims to practice practice. We’ll study the essential elements of creative nonfiction through the practices and provocations of a diverse set of working writers, styles, and genres: creative nonfiction, essay, memoir, journalism, commentary, and hybrid works. Introductory courses in the Writing program rigorously combine reading and writing. The early writing assignments explore basic skills and craft elements; we develop our voices and narrative structures, then revise. The required reading, critiquing, and workshop assignments will make students better writers and develop the skills necessary for a sustainable writing practice. No prerequisites.