Writing the Creative Nonfiction Book: How to Begin

(EGL 322)

The booming popularity of creative nonfiction reflects our widespread interest in true stories: memoirs, biographies, history, essays, long-form journalism, and others. For writers, the form offers both personal and practical benefits: an opportunity to understand and share our lives or interests, as well as increasing opportunities to publish. Many of our most popular and respected authors write creative nonfiction, from Annie Dillard and Joan Didion to David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers. This series of courses is designed for those wishing to write, or are in the process of writing, a book-length work of creative nonfiction. In the first course, “Writing the Creative Nonfiction Book: How to Begin,” we will investigate how a wide range of nonfiction writers have approached the daunting task of beginning a project, and discuss various approaches as we build toward outlines and an opening section. The series will continue in the Winter with “Sustaining Momentum: How to Continue the Nonfiction Book,” and in the Spring with “Completing the Nonfiction Book.” By the end of the process, writers will have a book proposal ready to submit to agents and publishers.

How to Begin

This course will explore answers to that most difficult of questions: how do we make our stories or ideas into a book? Many writers have difficulty writing that first line or paragraph. Many others have too many possible beginnings and don’t know which is best. This course will investigate how a wide range of nonfiction writers have approached the daunting task of beginning a project. We will focus especially on practical, craft-based methods of getting started: choosing a focus, finding a voice, outlining a structure, performing research, etc. Students will write foundational exercises that work toward an opening chapter or chapters, and will also lay the groundwork for a writing community as they give and receive feedback and begin to build their nonfiction projects.

Justin St. Germain , Former Stegner Fellow; Marsh McCall Lecturer

Justin St. Germain received an MFA from the University of Arizona. His memoir, Son of a Gun, will be published by Random House. His fiction and reviews have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Western American Literature, and other journals. St. Germain’s story “Tortolita" is forthcoming in Best of the West 2010.