ENG4620 Writing Creative Non-Fiction
4 Advanced Liberal Arts Credits
In this class, you will have the chance to write about moments in your life, and passionate interests, you wish to deeply explore. You will “read like a writer” to learn the elements and forms of creative nonfiction, including memoir, contemplative, nature, and travel essays. We will read creative nonfiction by such writers as Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, and David Foster Wallace, and consider both what the writers say and how they say it. You will write your own personal essays, developing your facility with such elements as conflict, persona, and character development, and, by sharing your work with peers, you will gain a critical understanding of your own writing. You will find, like creative nonfiction writer Dinty Moore, that “the happy by-product” of exploring, expressing the previously unspoken, “is that one has a richer life.”
Prerequisites: Any combination of 2 ILA (HSS, LTA, CSP, LVA, CVA)