Class Description
A strong personal essay begins with your story and ends with a connection to something bigger. In this workshop, we’ll explore what it’s like to use research as a tool to help bridge that gap.
We’ll begin class by reading and discussing two examples of writers who use research in their work — excerpts from Finding Beauty in a Broken World by Terry Tempest Williams and 25 Sightings of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker by Re’Lynn Hansen.
We’ll follow the reading with a few writing exercises to begin to carve out the bones of your own personal essay. Then, we’ll spend some time browsing jstor.org for a piece of research that will work to amplify the elements in your essay. We’ll end class with one final writing exercise to braid the research and personal essay together.
You’ll leave this class with a working understanding of the tools writers use to select and use research in their personal essays, and which types of research best work for your own writer’s voice.
This is a personal essay workshop best fit for creative nonfiction writers with some experience.
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.