Class Description
You don’t need to endure extreme adventures—working in the sex trade, living in a war zone, etc.—to produce powerful, salable essays. Oftentimes, the most resonant essays are those that are based in quiet, everyday moments, moments that we might pass by if we didn’t take the time to reflect on them. It's the work of the writer to pull the magic from such experiences, to draw on their personal insight and history to unpack “small” events in order to tell a larger story, ideally illustrating aspects of the human condition. Through in-class writing and a close reading of essays by John Hodgeman, Ta-nehisi Coates, and others, students will leave the class with new material and a fresh perspective on existing material.
Part of GrubStreet's Special Topics in the Nonfiction, a group of classes dedicated to exploring different craft elements of creative nonfiction. For more class offerings, click here.
Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.
For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.
Zoom Participation:
In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.
Zoom Accessibility:
You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.