In this creative nonfiction course, we will learn how and why the essay is a form of art. We draft ideas as a means of interrogating ourselves and our world. We will do this by learning and reading about experimental, hybrid forms. This writing style combines traditional essay writing with the craft of storytelling. Your essays will be creative and exploratory, and you will need to be open to reimagining what an essay is, or can be. To do this, we will read a wide assortment of narrative braids including essays and excerpts of narrative nonfiction, learning to understand how and why we might read prose the way a musician listens to a fugue. We will explore the work of authors who weave together multiple stories as they write, creating essays with rhythms, layers, and textures. An author might examine the color red in order to better understand the stigmas surrounding dyslexia, or they may research plasma in the universe in order to tell the story of their survival of a mass shooting. We will write narrative braided essays incorporating research into interrogations of pressing issues and stories of your own life. The essays will increase in length as we write, and you will complete one formal revision and expansion for your final project. We will discuss readings and each other’s writing, and as this is a course with a heavy workshop component, we will work in small teams to workshop and critique each other’s essays.

Classes will be a mix of meeting in person supplemented with video lectures and asynchronous work.

Class Format:

Online