CREATIVE NON-FICTION

Writing sample required to apply. Instructions and the application form can be found here: https://english.barnard.edu/english/creative-writing-courses.

In this section of creative nonfiction, we will explore the essay. We will consider the essay in the original and most open-ended sense of the term—coming from French, essai, meaning “attempt." This type of essay is also known as a personal essay.  

The personal essay is a paradoxical form. It makes rules and then breaks them. It announces itself and then slips out the backdoor. It is a mischief-maker and the successful essayist remembers that, remembers to stay playful.  And that's what our workshop will be about. As we attempt to write and share our stories, let’s ask one another: “what’s the fun of this story?” Let’s urge each other to see how can that fun remain, adhere, and grow through the drafting process.
 
Most of all, let's use the essay to explore our relationship to writing overall. Phillip Lopate writes that the essay “sets up a relationship with the reader, a dialogue—a friendship.” Seeing the sentence as a set of relationships, one tied to our human relations, we will write and revise with the hope of fostering an enduring relationship with the page.

Writers should expect to workshop at least twice, working toward a final portfolio of 15-20 double-spaced pages. We will read as we write including essays by James Baldwin, Jo Ann Beard, Margo Jefferson, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Phillip Lopate.