8-Week: More Than Self—Creative Nonfiction

In this eight-week critique-based workshop, we'll consider ways to balance personal stories with other modes of writing, from researched history, to politics and theory, and everything in between. What is a memoir's ideal interplay between narrative and non-narrative elements? When is story enough; or, does every personal narrative need outside sources? These questions can feel as existential as they are formal, cutting to the very heart of authority and truth. Our first few meetings will focus on exemplary readings from Teju Cole, Annie Dillard, Daniel Saldaña París, Joan Didion, and others, moving between discussions and writing prompts. Then we'll shift gears into workshop sessions that foreground each piece's possibilities, critiquing what's on the page while keeping eyes widely open to where and how the piece might evolve beyond the authorial self. Workshop authors will receive a full letter of editorial feedback from the instructor. Written peer reviews, however, will be limited to short answers to a prescribed set of questions drawn from the lessons of our readings.