This document outlines the syllabus for an advanced creative nonfiction workshop. The class will focus on writing exercises, discussions of craft techniques, workshops of student work, and readings of published essays. Students will write three original pieces to workshop, including memoir, journalism, and lyric essays. They will also complete weekly critical response papers analyzing assigned readings, which include works by Montaigne, Beerbohm, and Suleri. The goal is for students to refine their writing practices and understanding of the creative nonfiction genre.

1. Advanced Nonfiction Workshop,
aka…the end of the road.
#kidding #notkidding
So here’s what we’ll be doing…

2. Writing
 Our classes will include many generative exercises geared at different aspects of creative
nonfiction, taken from the craft book, Now Write.
 As part of our advanced work, we’ll not just be using these exercises to create/generate work, but
also as points of discussion about the use and thinking behind generative exercises as a creative
writing tool. Each prompt includes thoughts from its creator on its worth/pedagogy. We also will
be discussing these prompts, and the ways in which they work to draw out from the writer ideas/
memories or hone in on specific elements of craft/technique.
 Your midterm will require you to create an original exercise, present it to the class, along with the
thinking behind it, and to turn it in to me in written form (exercise and explanation).
 You will all then get to choose one of each other’s exercises for that day’s prompt.

3. Interrogating the work and the author
 In addition to reading the exercises’ authors’ justifications, we will be reading interviews with
various nonfiction authors about their techniques, motivations and writing habits.
 This is with the goal of you also refining and considering your own practices, both the strengths
of your generative practice, your revision practice, as well as the weaknesses in your own work
and practice that you want to refine.

4. For example
 John McPhee, a venerable literary journalist, is one of the authors whose work we will read. We
will read an essay of his from The New York called “Travels in Georgia,” which is basically a profile
of people who collect, study and eat road kill. We will also read an extensive interview with
McPhee from The Paris Review about his process, which is heavily structural because he is a
notably VERY long-form writer. I tried to use his technique for something I was writing and almost
lost my mind.

5. Technique and Critique
 We will continue critiquing and drilling down into the specific elements of craft technique that
were the backbone of your technique classes.
 Now, someone tell me what those elements are.

6. Technique
 Sensory Elements: sound, sight, taste, smell
 Characterization, direct and indirect
 Sense of Place
 Theme
 Reportage/ information
 Structure

7. Traditions
 We will also be thinking about the different traditions of creative nonfiction and exploring those
traditions through our weekly readings. Some of our readings will be OLD. Some will be newish.
Some will harken to the beginning of the form; others will build on the tradition.
 As such, you will be required, on each non workshop week, to turn in a one to two-page critical
paper that examines the assigned essays. I am leaving this a little bit open because the works are
all very different and may require different types of approaches, but in general, on the following
slide, you will learn what I expect:

8. Critical papers
 Critical papers may include:
 Craft analysis of the ways in which the authors effectively employed different aspects of craft
 Integrated analysis looking at the connective tissues of nonfiction writing between the essays
 Thematic analysis about the ways in which the authors used nonfiction to convey a larger idea
 Personal response *
 Personal responses are fine, but I will be looking for both critical thought and discussion. Also
personal respone should not be #like #didn’tlike. Everything you are reading has been vetted. If
you have criticisms of the works, make them smart.

9. More ranting about critical reading
 Some of the essays you read may include words you don’t know, concepts that are not familiar,
references that are obscure, historical events that happened oh so long ago. Reading critically
means reading with a dictionary, reading with a highlighter and researching anything you don’t
understand. Read as you would want your own work to be read: with intent, diligence and
intelligence.

10. The workshops
 Each of you will workshop three pieces of original work this semester:
 • internal writing. This may be memoir, philosophical inquiry, a more traditional personal essay
 External writing: This will be a piece more heavily reliant on reportage and observation—
journalism, arts criticism, travel writing
 Lyric essay: This can follow any number of lyric essay trajectories (flash, received forms, prose
poetry).
 All works must be completed first drafts, in other words, you should be “done” as far as you are
concerned. The first two should embrace a longer form (8-10 pages). Lyric essay does not have a
word count requirement.

11. Missing your workshop
DON’T

12. Coming Late to Class Because you are
making copies
DON’T

13. Preparing for Workshop
 You will receive critique sheets for each workshop. Bring copies of your critiques for each author
and one for me. These are part of your grade.
 Workshop discussions should be robust and include both suggestions from a craft perspective
from each author and thematic/philosophic/personal responses to the content.
 Prepare for one another’s workshops as you would want others to prepare for reviewing your
work.

14. WEEKLY ASSIGNMENTS
 PLEASE CHECK OUR CLASS WEBSITE FOR EACH WEEK’S READINGS
 I know some of you like to read ahead. Spoiler alert: I may change some of our readings. No
harm will come from reading ahead, but you should know there may be some substitutions.

15. Final portfolios
 Portfolio and Revision: Final work will consist of revised versions of all three required workshop
pieces, as well as a two-page portfolio statement that discusses the ways in which critique and
craft considerations were integrated into the revised work.
 Failure to revise will impact your grade. Revision should go beyond line editing (see introductory
class you took freshman year).

16. Syllabus
 Now we are going to review the syllabus. Please also review it yourself this week (you can also
find it on the class website) and let me know next week if you have any questions.
 You can also ask questions today. #obviously

17. Next Week’s Readings
 Your first critical paper is due next week. These papers will be the basis of our discussion next
week of these pieces, so come prepared with questions, ideas and observations.

18. Michel de Montaigne
 “Of a Monstrous Child,” a short essay by Montaigne,
available on the class website. Montaigne (153301592)
considered by many to be the greatest essayist in history.
Montaigne studied law and practiced it into his 30s. Then he
retired and began studying and writing. His relatively short
essays eventually became longer and more personal,
considered in some ways to be the first personal essay
writer. In the anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay, Philip
Lopate writes of Montaigne, “It was Montaigne’s conviction
that in spite of the range of human diversity, there is a basic
unity to human experience,” and thus “writing about oneself
is not a private, narcissistic act but will strike a chord of
grateful recognition in readers everywhere.” (p. 44)
 I’ve also assigned a New Yorker article on Montaigne (“Me,
Myself and I,”), link on website.
 Though obviously written a long time ago, Montaigne’s work
continues to have resonance for today’s nonfiction writers.

19. Max Beerbohm
 1872-1956, was an essay much admired by his
peers such as George Bernard Shaw and
Virginia Woolf (Art of the Personal Essay). In
addition to writing, Beerbohm also was a
cartoonist. Please read “Going Out for a Walk,”
which follows a certain tradition of essays
concerned with the joys of solitude and
observation. Beerbohm’s work also considered
to be part of the “rise of the English essay.”
 I’ve also included a link to a New Yorker profile
of Beerbohm. You can google about to look at
some of his artwork.

20. Sara Suleri
 Contemporary writer born and raised in
Pakistan, teaches at Yale University. Her
memoir, Meatless Days, is formed from a
series of personal and connected essays,
one of which we will read for next week. In
addition to following the tradition of the
personal essay, Suleri’s work also represents
the way in which the genre also has
expanded to include more diverse voices
and away from a strictly Western modernist
tradition.