English 290 - CRAFTING CREATIVE NONFICTION

A writer's workshop designed to explore the complexities and delights of creative nonfiction. Constant reading, writing and critiquing. Writing sample and permission of the instructor are required. Creative nonfiction" is a liberatingly-perhaps problematically-capacious genre. It encompasses literary forms as diverse as memoir, reportage, essay, criticism, history, prose poetry, and others. This course conducts a critical survey of the expansive terrain of creative nonfiction, as we read, evaluate, and enjoy major texts, from the origins of the essay to recently published work. Students engage with questions of structure, facticity, appropriation, representation, etc. This critical approach informs the course's workshop component, in which students compose and revise their own essays, receiving feedback from peers as well as the instructor. Writing sample and permission of the instructor required.

Writing Sample Required.