Creative Nonfiction: How to Tell the Story

(EGL 122 B)

This course is all about helping you find the right voice, structure, and style to write dynamic creative nonfiction. What makes writing creative nonfiction so exciting is that as a writer you have incredible freedom in the form, genre, and manner of telling. Whether it’s memoir, personal essay, hybrid forms, lyric meditations, nature writing, travel writing, journals, or cultural commentary—there’s a place for it under the big tent of creative nonfiction. Together we will read a wide variety of shorter essays and longer works by authors such as Mary Karr, Joan Didion, Adam Gopnik, Philip Lopate, and David Sedaris. We will also try new forms and exercises that will foster your ability to write and think creatively. The course will be divided into two parts. First we will focus on published authors and shorter writing exercises before workshopping a longer essay or chapter by each student. The workshop will be a great opportunity to receive honest and constructive feedback on your work. Students will leave this course with confidence in their writing, and lots of new tricks and techniques to take their writing to the next level.

Laura McKee, Former Stegner Fellow

Laura McKee received an MFA from the University of Maryland and a 2006 scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She has taught creative writing internationally, in countries including South Korea, Germany, and the Netherlands. Currently she teaches literature and writing classes to US military service personnel stationed overseas through the University of Maryland – Europe. McKee’s writing has appeared in Indiana Review, New South, Poetry Miscellany, Mantis, and TheRumpus.net.