Students explore selected forms of creative nonfiction: the personal essay, reportage, biography, travel writing, food writing, profile, memoir, and linked fragments. The use of dialogue, setting, characterization, plot, and narrative voice is emphasized. The discipline of writing regularly is encouraged and supported through the assignment of short weekly exercises. Students are also assigned longer pieces that are workshopped in class. Discussions about the forms, techniques, and history of nonfiction are supplemented by readings from work by Joan Didion, V.S. Naipaul, Jamaica Kincaid, W.G. Sebald, Sherman Alexie, and Abigail Thomas.