MEM 118 — The Language of Grief: A Generative Writing Course
Quarter: Summer
Instructor(s): Jayson Greene
Date(s): Jun 25—Jul 30
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Thursdays
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Class Meeting Time: 5:30—7:30 pm (PT)
Tuition: $550
Refund Deadline: Jun 27
Unit(s): 1
Enrollment Limit: 18
Status: Open
Quarter: Summer
Day: Thursdays
Duration: 6 weeks
Time: 5:30—7:30 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jun 25—Jul 30
Unit(s): 1
Tuition: $550
Refund Deadline: Jun 27
Instructor(s): Jayson Greene
Grade Restriction: No letter grade
Enrollment Limit: 18
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Open
Tapping into grief can unlock your most powerful writing. Whether you are working on a personal essay about loss, writing a grief memoir, or seeking to deepen the emotional impact of a story or novel, the language of loss will illuminate the darkest and most vital corners of your work. Drawing on passages by writers such as Ocean Vuong, Carmen Maria Machado, and Yōko Ogawa, we will explore how grief writing can be compelling, poetic, disorienting, and even funny.
Each session blends brief lectures, close reading, generative writing, and small-group sharing. Through carefully designed prompts, such as writing a letter to someone lost or recalling a moment of grief using only one of five senses, you will develop a precise and resonant vocabulary for grief. You will finish with new work and a deeper understanding of how to shape loss into language that carries emotional force and leaves a lasting impression.
JAYSON GREENE
Author
Jayson Greene is the author of the memoir Once More We Saw Stars and the novel UnWorld and a contributing writer and former senior editor at Pitchfork. His writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Vulture, GQ, and elsewhere, and his music criticism has been nominated for a National Magazine Award. Textbooks for this course:
There are no required textbooks; however, some fee-based online readings may be assigned.