Program Courses
Please note that course schedules may be amended due to low enrollment, faculty availability, and/or other factors.
Online Sync Sessions are an integral part of the online learning experience. Additional information about learning concepts and assignments may be discussed and sync sessions offer valuable opportunities for students to interact with their faculty and peers during the term. We encourage all students to attend live, but if they are unable to, sync sessions will be recorded and posted within Canvas to allow for an asynchronous model of success as well.
MCW 461-0 : Creative Nonfiction Workshop
Description
This workshop examines the personal essay as a contribution to a greater cultural dialogue, digging into a myriad of forms including memoir, criticism, investigation, reflection, and the delicious and often messy ways that writers have blurred those lines between them. We’ll approach reading as inspiration, challenge, and treasure map: how can the work that has come before us guide us in our own creative problem solving, our how the hell do I get this on the page?
We’ll start with the gut—what do you need to tell, the memories, fascinations, and questions that live not in your head but your bones—and then move into craft—how to tell our own stories in ways that are equally urgent to an audience. Pulling from both literary and oral storytelling traditions, we’ll engage in a series of activities to get our stories out of the body and onto the page, encouraging risk and discovery and examining literary craft in new ways. How does telling a story aloud heighten our understanding of its movement and structure? How does the presence of an immediate audience influence the rewriting process? What does it mean to build an individual writing process that will sustain us without the support of a class?
We’ll be developing two full essays over the course of the summer, taking them through multiple drafts that work towards the writer’s individual goals. Is this part of a longer work? Are there specific publications you'd like to pitch or submit to? Do you just need to get this story out of you? Let’s make it happen. Let's get at your stories.
We need them. We need you. We’re trying to remake the world.