Intensive Nonfiction Writing

ENGL 6174

Writing Workshops in Cork: Summer, 2015

Instructor: Kaethe Schwehn

E-mail:

Course Description and Context

The purpose of this course is fairly straightforward: to help you become a better writer of creative nonfiction. Because we’ll be reading and discussing and learning in Ireland, a country to which most of us are not native, I want to think together about what it means to be a citizen, to be an inhabitant of a particular place at a particular moment in time. So we’ll read essays that explore this theme from different angles: race, religion, art, etc. Insofar as the self is always a current (however large or small) in creative nonfiction, we’ll talk and explore the idea of positioning the self within the wider scopes of history, society, and nation. While you will not be expected to directly integrate any of these readings into your essays, it will be a fruitful way for us to contextualize some of our discussion. We will also mine these essays for craft techniques, for the way in which formal choices affect the authorial presentation of “self.” Success in the course, then, is dependent both on your ability to engage your reader on the page and your ability to articulate how an essay functions (or could function better) in the work of your peers. The assignments (below) reflect those requirements.

Readings

Citizen, Claudia Rankine

“In Search of a Nation,” from Object Lessons by Eavan Boland

“A Native Son” from The Sign of the Cross by Colm Tóibín

excerpt from All Will Be Well by John McGahern

Note: Essays and excerpts available on Moodle; book should be purchased. Please bring hard copies of all materials with you.

Assignments

Three essays

  • Two due via e-mail on June 1st. The third due on July 2nd.
  • Essays should be double spaced, 11 or 12 point font, 8-20 pages. You may also submit a portion of a memoir or longer nonfiction narrative but the section you submit should be able to stand alone.
  • You are responsible for bringing hard copies of your peers’ essays to Ireland.

Responses

  • A typed, double spaced, 1-2 page response for each workshopped essay, due on the day the essay is workshopped.
  • You should also annotate the essay itself, noting particularly issues at the sentence level.
  • For specific guidelines and suggestions, see the handout on Moodle.

Readings

  • All students are required to attend all evening readings.
  • Each student must present a section of work at one event.

Grading

You will receive feedback from me on each essay; however you will not receive an individual grade. Grading will be holistic, with one grade assigned at the end of the term based on your overall performance in the course.

Schedule

A schedule will be posted on Moodle once registration is solidified. I encourage you to do as much reading and responding as you can before your arrival in Ireland.

If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to contact me via e-mail.