Workshops

Instructor: Kathy Pfeiffer

How can nonfiction writers engage creatively with all the things that we can’t remember, the things we can’t or don’t know? This creative writing workshop is designed for nonfiction writers – those interested in memoir, family history, travel writing, food writing, and such – who want to tell true stories but also encounter challenging gaps in information. “There is so much we don’t know,” writes Rebecca Solnit, “and to write truthfully about a life, your own or your mother’s, or a celebrated figure’s, an event, a crisis, another culture is to engage repeatedly with those patches of darkness, those nights of history, those places of unknowing.”

In this generative workshop, we will first explore the role of imagination in nonfiction writing by reading and discussing some examples of writers who treated these information gaps as moments of enormous creative possibility. We will try out some hinges: rhetorical strategies that treat these gaps as opportunities rather than limitations. Then, we will respond to some writing prompts ourselves, and if time permits, students can share a bit of what they’ve written to receive feedback and support from the group. In addition to the examples of published work to serve as models and inspiration, students will also take away a series of writing prompts that will allow them to carry their writing practice forward.

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