Class Description
What does it mean to write about place? Specifically, what does it mean to write about the city in which we live? In this course, students will use the anthology Our Boston as a jumping-off point to craft their own pieces about specific places and experiences in our city. We'll review the perspectives of authors such as Jabari Asim and Pico Iyer, and also look at other place-based writing, such as Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge. We'll take some field trips to popular destinations to see how we each write differently about the same location, and students will also pick a Boston locale of their own to write about over the course of the summer, visiting it at different times of day and focusing on different aspects of the place, including the people that visit it, its history, its place in the city, and the students' own connection to it. The course will culminate in a final presentation of these place-specific writings. Students will come away from the course with the perspective and tools necessary to write about any place in the world, and with a newfound appreciation for Boston.
Before the first class, students should purchase Our Boston: Writers Celebrate the City They Love, edited by Andrew Blauner (Mariner Books).
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.