When We are the story: Lessons from fiction for the personal essay
(Fall 2021 Registration for this course is now closed.)
Sundays, October 24 – December 12, 2021
1:00–3:00 p.m. EDT
Online via Zoom
Cost: $160. (Limited scholarships available)
Syllabus
Week 1: “One merely comes to meet one’s friends / and show that one’s alive”
Descriptive Mode
Week 2: “I would far rather feel… than know how to define it”
Definition Mode
Week 3: “We are so made, that we can only derive intense enjoyment from a contrast”
Compare/Contrast Mode
Week 4: “Change the world, one sequin at a time.”
Process Analysis Mode
Week 5: “All I have is a voice / To undo the folded lie”
Voice
Week 6: The Self that Dare Not Speak Its Name
The Dispossessed Narrator
Week 7: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave”
The Braided Essay
Week 8: “Tell the Truth, but Tell It Slant”
Nonfiction vs. Fact
Jonathan Freeman-Coppadge has been teaching writing for fifteen years. He serves as fiction editor at Oyster River Pages. His most recent work appears in What We Didn’t Expect: Personal Stories About Premature Birth (Melville House, 2020). He is represented by Chris Kepner.
Description
Ask most fiction writers how they feel about writing nonfiction and you’ll probably be met with a sigh, an eye roll, and a perfunctory confession that they find it dull or too difficult. Ask essayists and memoirists about writing stories and novels and they’ll start twitching, suppressing the desire to strangle the next person who insinuates that nonfiction isn’t “real” literature.
Whatever your feelings about the your non-dominant genre (disdain, despair, disinterest?), there is an alternative! While the two are often talked about as if they were independent islands that few travel between, the truth is that their relationship is closer to that of an archipelago: seemingly discrete entities that are in fact bound together by shared formation, composition, and environmental challenges.
The goal of this course is to move us off our comfortable little “islands” and to learn about the practice of nonfiction storytelling by examining the features and principles of fiction storytelling. Each week will feature two assigned readings—one short story, one essay—that share an element of composition. We’ll ask what the flexibility of fiction has to offer the strictures of nonfiction and practice writing our own stories in ways that surprise both reader and writer. Every week will have a writing assignment based on the studied principle, and Weeks 2–8 will feature workshops of student writing.
Believing that the best learning happens when all voices at the table feel empowered, Oyster River Pages seeks to create diverse and affirming learning experiences. Space is limited, and some scholarship opportunities are available.
Contact Jonathan Freeman-Coppadge, Fiction Editor, with inquiries: jonathan{at}oysterriverpages{dot}com.
Register by Monday, October 18, 2021. All applicants will receive confirmation by October 20. Click below to be directed to a secure site where you can pay your tuition fee and claim your seat.
