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.

Creative Nonfiction is a broad umbrella of possibility. It is work that eschews strident objectivity in favor of a more subjective and artful experience. An essay can be entirely abstract, but is still driven, to some extent, by information and instruction. Creative Nonfiction appropriates the existing forms of nonfiction—autobiography, history, journalism—and invigorates them with the breath of art. Creative Nonfiction is nonfiction that aspires to the condition of literature. This course expands the definition of Creative Nonfiction by providing students with the opportunity to sample and experiment with forms both short and long. Readings will include James Baldwin, Annie Dillard, George Orwell, Nelly Bly, Zora Neale Hurston, James Agee, Dagoberto Gilb, Gertrude Stein, William James, Cynthia Ozick, Terese Marie Mailhot, and Stephen Jay Gould. There may be required textbooks or materials associated with this course

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. After the first week of the semester, permission of the instructor will be required in order to register for this course.