English 384fs - Seminar: Topics in Writing about American Society-The Art of Writing Family Stories

This is a workshop class where students learn the art of reporting and crafting longform creative nonfiction by writing about the mysteries and perplexities of family—our own and others, the ones we’re born into and the ones we observe. Students probe crisis and change within the family story--along with dynamics of gender, sexuality, race, and power—by composing a series of creative nonfiction pieces that explore familial relations at ground level: an observational essay, a profile, and a longer narrative that grapples with a family drama, whether that’s a mother-daughter struggle, a buried secret, or a forgotten history. Students read family stories by virtuosos of the form—among them, Vivian Gornick, Jeanette Winterson, Audre Lorde, Maxine Hong Kingston, J.R. Ackerley—and master the fundaments of interviewing, structure, voice, style, and ethics.

[CE] JR/SR only