Writers have come to realize that the genre of nonfiction writing can be as colorful and gripping as any piece of fiction. The difference is that nonfiction writers are not burdened with inventing characters, dialogue, plot and description because everything they write about actually happened. Creative nonfiction writers assemble the facts and events and array them artistically and stylistically, using the descriptive techniques of the fiction writer. They immerse themselves in a venue, set about gathering their facts while demonstrating scrupulous accuracy, and then write an account of what happened in their own voice. The Greyhound Bus Company advertised “getting there is half the fun.” In the genre of creative nonfiction, getting there is all the fun because the reader already knows how the piece ends before it begins. Students will become proficient with the form through intensive fieldwork, research and writing.

We will begin by studying field research methodology in preparation for observational studies in the field designed to teach the difference between truly seeing and simply looking. Students can’t write and describe something they can’t see clearly.

Students will conduct field research to learn to pay attention to detail, read and discuss representative examples of the form, and meet weekly in regularly scheduled writing workshop. Following a period of redrafting and corrections, students will present their final piece to the group in the last week of the quarter.

We will read and discuss the following creative nonfiction books: Literary Journalism ed. by Sims & Kramer, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, Number Our Days by Barbara Myerhoff, Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil by John Berendt, Have a Little Faith by Mitch Albom, Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson, and In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.