CREATIVE NONFICTION WORKSHOP

Course Description

Students will write a variety of nonfiction pieces to be read and discussed in class. The genres we'll focus on in this workshop are travel, profile, and memoir writing. To give you an example of a great nonfiction book that combines all three, we'll read Ian Frazier's masterpiece "Great Plains", which includes a journey around America's great plains (what some people refer to as "flyover country"), profiles of people who made history on those plains (Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, General Custer, Bonnie and Clyde), and incidents from the author's life as he experiences these plains, driving around in an old van, going to odd regional museums, talking to old-timers. We'll also use exercises from Abigail Thomas' book "Thinking About Memoir".

Required Text

Ian Frazier, Great Plains Picador
Abigail Thomas, Thinking About Memoir available only as a Kindle edition