Nonfiction and fiction narratives

“Writing starts with living.”   ― L.L. Barkat

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality.” ― Shirley Jackson

Broadly speaking, narrative possesses the seemingly contradictory nature of being simultaneously from life and outside of life. That is, while both nonfiction and fiction narratives can come from an individual’s actual experience, they also allow a writer and a reader to step outside of themselves and engage in a loosely connected but markedly separate world. It’s with these two curious facets of narrative that we will be focusing on during this ten-week workshop. We’ll do this through a variety of activities that’ll include exploring craft lessons, reading pieces from Joan Didion, Maggie Nelson, Breece Pancake, and other writers, engaging in writing prompts, and ultimately through conducting an end-of-course workshop where participants will have the chance to read the work of other participants and have their own work read and reviewed. My hope is that by the end of the course you will have a better understanding of not only how life can help inform and shape any story you may want to tell, but also how writing and reading can provide a needed and wonderful break from, as Shirley Jackson puts it, the “conditions of absolute reality.”