Summer Courses start Monday 7/10!
Grab your spot in "Lyric Essay" or "Memoir in Collage"
If you’re longing for a summer writing jumpstart, we’d love to have you in one of our five-week courses. Megan Baxter is teaching Memoir in Collage, and I (Joanna) am teaching Writing the Lyric Essay: When Poetry and Nonfiction Play. The classes run asynchronously in the Wet Ink platform with one optional Zoom meeting. You sign in any time— on your own schedule— to do the readings, respond to writing exercises, and read your peers’ work.
The lessons open weekly, and the course runs July 10th through August 13th. Both classes were designed for Creative Nonfiction, and they’ve been very well received by past participants. PLUS: Payment plans are now available. (See the instructions above the “Add to Cart” button on each course page.)
Keep reading below for more information about each class!
LYRIC ESSAY
I originally designed this course for the Creative Nonfiction Foundation, and I’ve been teaching it since 2018.
Here are some of the kind things students have said about me and the course:
Joanna, thank you for all you have done for us this course. It has really been a good experience for me, and it's helping me find my voice and add those lyric elements to it, which I really love. You've been a great teacher, and this has been such a good class. I'm really so glad that I got to participate -- what a blessing! Thank you for everything!
This was an inspiring course!
You are one of the best instructors I've encountered on this platform. Thanks so much!
Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback on my pieces, Joanna. And thank you for including other pieces I may want to look into that came to mind for you as you were reading—this is so helpful and gives me even more fuel to move forward.
This class has been brilliant for me and I really appreciate all that you have given away through it.
Thank you again for such a wonderful class. I enjoyed it so much and I really got a lot of joy out of the readings/discussions. It was helpful for me also to put a name to some things I was already feeling and seeing in my writing and to explore other genres. These lessons all ignited something in me. I think the exercises helped me access some memories and gave me the space and permission to explore how I want to use them in my writing. It was good to be in that generative space again and to feel like I had a community of readers.
I really liked the way you designed and curated this course. There was a simplicity to it that was inviting. But I found it to be expansive, thorough, and very much engaging. Thanks also for offering such a warm environment and for all your attention throughout the course. It really was a pleasure.
And here is the sequence of lessons:
WEEK 1: LYRIC MODELS: SPACE AND COLLAGE
In this first week, we’ll consider definitions and models for the lyric essay. You will read contemporary pieces that straddle the line between personal essay and poem, including work by Toi Derricotte, Anne Carson, and Maggie Nelson. In exercises, you will explore collage and the use of white space.
WEEK 2: EXPERIMENTS WITH FORM: BRAIDED ESSAY AND HERMIT CRAB ESSAY
We will build on our discussion of collage and white space, looking at examples of the braided essay. We’ll also examine the hermit crab essay, in which writers “sneak” personal essays into other forms, such as a job letter, shopping list, or how-to manual. You’ll experiment with your own braided pieces and hermit crab pieces and turn in the first assignment.
WEEK 3: LYRIC VIGNETTE AND THE PROSE POEM
Prose poems will often capture emotional truths using juxtaposition, hyperbole, and absurd or surreal leaps of logic. This week, we’ll investigate how lyrical vignettes can stay true to actual events while employing some of the lyrical, dreamlike, and/or absurd qualities of the prose poem to communicate the wonder and mystery of life.
WEEK 4: WITNESSING THE SELF: ESSAYS BY POETS
Poet Larry Levis has written of the poet as witness, as temporarily emptied of personality but simultaneously connected to a self, a “gazer.” Personal essays by poets retain something of this quality. Examining essays by poets such as Ross Gay, Larry Levis, Amy Gerstler, and Elizabeth Bishop, we’ll look at moments of connection and disconnection. Guided exercises will help you find and craft your own such moments.
WEEK 5: HYBRID FORMS AND THE DOCUMENTARY IMPULSE
As we wrap up the course, we will continue investigating the possibilities inherent in straddling and combining genres as we explore multimedia work, as well as work in the “documentary poetics” vein. We will look to writers like Claudia Rankine and Bernadette Mayer, Brenda Coultas, and Allison Bechdel for models of what is possible creatively when we observe ourselves as social beings moving through time, collecting text, images, and observations. Students will also turn in a final essay.
MEMOIR IN COLLAGE [only 7 spots left!]
Are you wondering how you can craft a memoir from life’s twists and turns? Maybe you’ve been overwhelmed with scope and don’t know where to begin. This class will guide you through a new way to write your story. A collaged approach to memoir composes a narrative through fragments and found items, building a story from many smaller pieces.
Megan Baxter, author of the essay collection Twenty Square Feet of Skin, designed this course for Creative Nonfiction, and taught it in our Spring session at Muse. Here is what you get:
Weekly written lectures describing craft definitions, processes, and considerations
Weekly writing prompts to help you generate material and spark creativity
Weekly practical writing tips including suggestions on scheduling writing time, conducting research, working through “writers block,” and the publishing process
Weekly reading assignments (PDFs or links to free material) and critical questions to ask based on the text
Weekly online writing workshops where you will share your work and receive feedback from the class’s virtual writing community, hosted by our class discussion board
A peer review guide to help structure your response to other writers work and establish a constructive and supportive writing group within the class
The opportunity to submit an essay or memoir fragment of up to 3500 words for detailed instructor feedback including suggestions and considerations for revision
A live video conference hosted by the instructor in Week 2 that is open to all students (and available afterwards for those who are unable to participate) and will include introductions, a Q&A, a live writing prompt, and a chance to share your ideas and work with the class community