GRADUATE WORKSHOP
CREATIVE NONFICTION WRITING
English 623-01
W
Spring 2003
Porter Shreve Office: 119 McIver
portershreve@aol.com
Office
Hours: W 12-2
334-4692 (and
by appointment)
Required: Bill Roorbach. The Art of Truth:
Contemporary Creative Nonfiction.
On Reserve: Various Essays (check
Course Description
Creative Nonfiction is a disputed term, but
generally speaking it encompasses three sub-genres: memoir, essay and literary
journalism. Many creative nonfiction classes concentrate on one of these three,
but here we’ll be writing in a variety of forms and reading a bit of
everything: autobiographies of place, memoirs, personal reflections on art, meditations on the natural world, personal political
writing, travel essays, profiles, critical analyses, and experiential
journalism.
For the purposes of organization I’ve divided
the semester’s reading into formal categories: Place, Portraits, Creative
Criticism & Inquiry, Science & Nature, Society
& Culture. I’ve further divided each of these categories in two: Personal
and Journalistic. Under Place/Personal, for example, we’ll read mostly memory
pieces focused around a locale by such authors as the funeral director/poet
Thomas Lynch; under Portraits/Journalistic, we’ll read an excerpt from John Hersey’s group portrait of Hiroshima after the bomb; and
under Society & Culture/Journalistic, we’ll read the beginning of Barbara Ehrenreich’s experiential study of surviving in America
working minimum wage jobs.
At the completion of this course, you should be
able to:
1.
Identify and understand the varied
characteristics of literature
2.
Apply the techniques of literary analysis
to texts
3.
Use literary study to develop your skills
in careful reading and clear writing
4.
Demonstrate an understanding of the
diverse social and historical contexts in which the assigned literary texts
have been written and interpreted.
1-4 short (4-8 page) essays
1-3 long (9-20 page) essays.
1 presentation (each of you will
present on a favorite nonfiction piece or two, no longer than 15 pages)
1 essay exercise (each of you will
create an essay triggering exercise, which you will type up and distribute on
the day of your presentation)
Final portfolio: 30-50 pages of
polished, vivid, thought-inspiring prose.
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE
*Note:
W 1/15
Introductions
Syllabus
Presentation sign-up
In-class writing: what’s in a word
(from Kim Barnes)
W 1/22
Presentation 1:
“Equal in
“The Undertaking” Thomas Lynch, p.
270
“At the University: Little Murders
of the Soul” Vivian Gornick, p. 235
Due: photograph connected to your
hometown or a triggering objet d’art
In-class writing: caption essay
(from Civilization Magazine)
W 1/29
Presentation 2:
“Meet the Shaggs”
Susan Orlean (handout)
“One Village” Naomi Shihab Nye, p. 465
From
Due: 3-6 page short piece
Mini Workshop
W 2/5
Presentation 3:
From The Liar’s Club Mary Karr, p. 143
“Tracks and Ties” Andre Dubus III, p. 118
Workshop 1:
Workshop 2:
Workshop 3:
W 2/12
Presentation 4:
“
“Country Matters” Hayden Carruth, p. 217
Workshop 4:
Workshop 5:
Workshop 6:
W 2/19
Presentation 5:
From
Workshop 7:
Workshop 8:
Workshop 9:
III. CREATIVE CRITICISM & INQUIRY
W 2/26
Personal
Presentation 6:
“The Dead Father: A Remembrance of
Donald Barthelme” Phillip Lopate,
p. 220
“Music is my Bag: Confessions of a
Lapsed Oboist” Meghan Daum, p. 517
Workshop 10:
Workshop 11:
Workshop 12:
W 3/5
Personal
Presentation 7:
Workshop 13:
Workshop 14:
Workshop 15:
Workshop 16:
W 3/12 Spring Break
W 3/19
Journalistic
Presentation 8:
Presentation 9:
Presentation 10:
From The Silent Woman Janet Malcolm, p. 525
“The Mystery of Mickey Mouse” John
Updike (handout)
Due 3-6 page short piece
Mini Workshop
IV. SCIENCE & NATURE
Personal
Presentation 11:
“Spring” Sue Hubbell, p. 429
Workshop 1:
Workshop 2:
Workshop 3:
W 4/2
Journalistic
Presentation 12:
“When Doctors Make Mistakes” Atul Gawande, p. 502
Workshop 4:
Workshop 5:
Workshop 6:
W 4/9
Journalistic
Presentation 13:
“Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp”
Joy Williams, p. 286
Workshop 7:
Workshop 8:
Workshop 9:
V. SOCIETY & CULTURE
W 4/16
Personal
Presentation 14:
“This is What You Need for a Happy
Life” Jane Shapiro, p. 275
Workshop 10:
Workshop 11:
Workshop 12:
W 4/23
Presentation 15:
“On Being the Target of
Discrimination” Ralph Ellison, p. 206
From Waist-High in the World Nancy Mairs, p.
254
Workshop 13:
Workshop 14:
W 4/30
Journalistic
Presentation 16:
From Nickel-and-Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in
Workshop 15:
Workshop 16:
Exeunt
*Final Portfolio is due in my office on
Wednesday, May 7
5. (Personal/Place)
Captions: On the “Captions” page of Civilization
Magazine, writers are asked to describe a photograph, drawing or objet
d’art. Joyce Carol Oates, for example, writes about a picture of her
mother and herself, and suggests what significance the simple snapshot has for
the context of her family life at that moment. “Memory,” she says, “is our
favorite form of time travel” and the snapshot helps to get “across the mysterious
abyss of time.” To reach back into memory and begin to give yourself a sense of
setting and detail, pick photographs of your own and write a “caption essay”
about them.
6. (Personal/Portrait):
Separate Paths: Write a memoir piece about a person you know (from your family
or perhaps among your childhood friends) who took a
divergent path from your own. Look at the way John Edgar Wideman
explores the differences and similarities between himself and his brother in Brothers and Keepers or the way Kathryn
Harrison handles incest in The Kiss.
Look also at Andre Dubus III’s
reflective piece “Tracks and Ties.” Use the advantages of the personal essay
form to weave assertion with illustration, anecdote with commentary. Remember
that this is as much an essay about you as it is about your subject.
Don’t shirk on self-analysis. Use your memory and,
where appropriate, your imagination.
7. (Journalistic/Portrait):
Where are they now: After reading Susan Orlean’s
profile “Meet the Shags,” think of your own where are they now piece (this
could be personal or journalistic). Track down or, if you’re not up for that,
research and track someone you remember who might have been a local celebrity
for a time in your hometown or city. If I were to write this piece, I might choose
Lenny Skutnick, the hero of the Air Florida disaster,
which occurred in my hometown of DC when I was in seventh grade. Where is this
local celebrity now? To what extent does s/he still hold on to the memory of
his/her golden moment? Consider segmenting the piece between past glory and
present conditions. Where does the subject live? What role does place serve in
the subject’s life?
8. (Personal/Society
& Culture) Kim Barnes often speaks to her writing students about
"bringing their intellect to bear" as they compose their personal
essays. The problem creative nonfiction writers face, she says, is how to
challenge their individual stories--how to take the narrative itself and expand
its breadth and reach to encompass more of the world. One
exercise that she uses to help her 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 might choose
"paratrooper"; a middle-aged woman of Scottish descent might choose
"bagpipes.” Students are then required to 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. Students benefit in particular from
studying 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.
A Brief Sampling of Creative Nonfiction Writers by Category
·
Personal
Margaret Atwood, Kim
Barnes, Wendell Berry, Carol Bly, Judith Ortiz Cofer, William Kittredge, Michael
Martone, James Alan McPherson
·
Journalistic
Buzz Bissinger, Ian Frazier, Darcy Frey, Jim Harrison, William
Least Heat-Moon, Kathleen Norris, John McPhee
II: Portraits
·
Personal
James Conaway, Dave
Eggers, Phillip Lopate, Hillary Masters, Katha Pollit, Alice Walker, John
Edgar Wideman, Geoffrey Wolff
·
Journalistic
Elizabeth Gilbert,
Jane Kramer, Beverly Lowry, Susan Orlean, Gay Talese, Studs Terkel, Tom Wolfe
III: Creative Criticism & Inquiry
·
Personal
·
Journalistic
Nicholson Baker, Wayne
Koestenbaum, Joyce Carol Oates, Deborah Tannen, Jane Tompkins, John Updike,
IV: Science & Nature
·
Personal
Rick Bass, Annie
Dillard, Edward Hoagland, Linda Hogan, Maxine Kumin,
Barry Lopez, N. Scott Momaday, May Sarton, Richard Selzer
·
Journalistic
Edward Abbey, Diane
Ackerman, Stephen J. Gould, Bill McKibben, David Quammen, Oliver Sacks, Lewis Thomas
V: Society & Culture
·
Personal
James Baldwin, Tony Earley, Gerald Early, Lucy Grealy,
Maxine Hong Kingston, Adrienne Rich, Richard Rodriguez
·
Journalistic
Ted Conover, Joan Didion, Malcolm Gladwell, Alex Kotlowitz, Michael Herr, Richard Rhodes, Susan Sontag, Randy Shilts