Class Description
How do you write about personal life experiences in a way that's gripping and breathtaking, rather than self-indulgent and unshaped? In this 8-week workshop for beginners, you'll learn and practice the fundamental building blocks of writing personal narratives. We'll discuss your own writing as well as examples of personal essays by authors such as Brenda Miller, Roxane Gay, Ryan Van Meter, Alexander Chee, Abigail Thomas, Theresa Okokon, Bernard Cooper, Imami Perry, and Jamaica Kincaid (many drawn from the "Best American Essays 2020 and 2021" anthologies, among other sources). Each week, we'll look at ways to craft your stories by focusing on elements like questions, conflict, and change, passages of reflection, summary and backstory, efficient characterization, pacing, form, and structure.
We'll also read excerpts from such craft books as Tell It Slant (Miller/Paola); Crafting The Personal Essay (Moore) and Writing the Memoir (Barrington). We will have weekly in-class workshops and in-class exercises, as well as take-home assignments that will allow you to practice what we learn; these will be shared ahead of time and will receive oral feedback from your fellow students and the instructor. Depending on enrollment, you’ll present drafts of at least 1 essay for class feedback during the workshop, as well as share shorter exercises. By the end of the workshop you will have beginnings and drafts, finished essays, as well as tools and tips to help your personal essay writing moving forward.
Class Format
This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. About 15 minutes before your class is scheduled to begin, you'll receive an email from your instructor with a link to join the class meeting!
Scholarship Information
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 more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, 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.