Truth and Lives in Creative Nonfiction
This course introduces students to reading and writing creative nonfiction and to the workshop method of critiquing student writing. It emphasizes significant works of literature through analysis and creative writing and develops a writer’s attention to craft.
How do we tell the truth about our lives? In this course, we will investigating different modes of creative writing that answers that question. Our focus will be creative nonfiction, but we will discuss poetry and fiction, looking at how the writing techniques in these genres influence our stories. We will consider how personal, social, economic, and cultural influences impact the stories we tell, and what it means to write the personal into the public sphere. As a class, we will read work that is evocative and compelling—this includes work that is innovative in form, troubling the boundaries between fiction and creative nonfiction and poetry.
The class will experiment with writing creative nonfiction by way of craft. This means we will experiment with writing techniques: setting, scene, characterization, description, dialogue, voice, and more. We will also question what truth-telling in nonfiction requires of the writer. Are there different perceptions of truth? Where does creativity lie in the boundaries of truth?
By the end of the semester, you will have a portfolio of your writing that illuminates your progression as a creative writer. This class will be engaging and dynamic! Bring your passion and sense of discovery!