For Wed. 11/20

This week we will begin class by discussing Dillard's "Total Eclipse" and continue with the first half of Maps to Anywhere. Please read and bring the texts and come prepared to discuss and share your ideas constructively.

Write your blog response on either of these readings, and otherwise follow the syllabus for assignments and due dates.



Essay Writing Assignment 1: follow the instructions below to choose a word,  create five parts/sections, and then turn this material into an essay of your own.

Writing A Creative Essay Exercise (from: http://www.chsbs.cmich.edu/Robert_Root/AWP/cnf.htm)

Kim Barnes: “What is a Word Worth?”

        I often speak to my writing students about "bringing their intellect to bear" as they compose their personal essays.  What I mean by this is that the best literary nonfiction should work at a number of different levels, including the level of intellectual stimulation.  The problem we face as writers of nonfiction is how to challenge our individual stories--how to take the narrative itself and expand its breadth and reach to encompass more of the world.

        One exercise that I use to help my students achieve this goal involves building an essay from a single word. First, the students each choose one word--any word--to which they are particularly drawn, a word that resonates for them.  A young man just discharged from the military chose "paratrooper"; a middle-aged woman of Scottish descent chose "bagpipes."  I then require that the students write five sections of nonfiction revolving around this single word: The first, third, and fifth sections must be personal memories triggered by the word, and they must be written in present tense no matter the actual chronology; the second and fourth sections must be more analytical, intellectual, philosophical, and explore the word in a more scholarly way.  I direct the students to study the word's derivation and history. They often find passages in religious texts and mythologies that inform the word's meaning in their own experience.  Some discuss the word's appearance and use in contemporary literature or film.

        The goal of this exercise is to weave the word's broader application into the writer's personal experience.  Ideally, the five sections weave together and inform one another and bring to the essay a kind of intellectual unity as well as a greater depth and complexity.

 

The Creative Essay

About Creative Nonfiction:

Alternatively known as "literary journalism" or the "literature of fact," creative nonfiction is that branch of writing which employs literary techniques and artistic vision usually associated with fiction or poetry to report on actual persons and events. Though only recently identified and taught as a distinct and separate literary genre, the roots of creative nonfiction run deeply into literary tradition and history. The genre, as currently defined, is broad enough to include nature and travel writing, the personal memoir and essay, as well as "new journalism," "gonzo journalism," and the "nonfiction novel."  (Bruce Hoffman, Univ. of Pittsburgh English Department Alumus)

*Writing Creative Nonfiction: The Literature of Reality, Gay Talese, with introduction by Barbara Lounsberry

*Contemporary creative nonfiction: the art of truth, Bill Roorbach

*The Next American Essay, Ed. John D’Agata


Also see pdf on Writing Creative Nonfiction on EMU Online and Essay Packets

Fiction assignments and next week

For next week follow syllabus for the reading assignments as we transition into the genre of the creative essay, and come prepared to share your fiction stories in workshop groups. Write your blog post on Essay Packet 1.

Additional fiction writing exercises:

4 qualities (in-class writing)

postcards

HW Fiction Writing Assignment: Dialogue

Listen to or listen in on some other folks’ conversation. Write down what they say or remember it to write down later. Record 10-20 lines of the dialogue of a real conversation.

Use this dialogue in a story. You can create the characters around the dialogue or include the dialogue (in a single piece or separate it throughout the story) in a larger story that you construct. The story should include the dialogue as well as other story elements.

Bathhouse Creative Writing Events

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