Personally is designed for academics across the social sciences and humanities, at any level, who would like to learn how to more fully integrate personal material into their academic work. You will learn how to decide which details in your life can be used to engage with your ideas, writing original, well-made, and vivid books with a voice that is uniquely yours.
Class Purpose
In Personally you will learn the tools of scholarly narrative nonfiction as you consider the potential relationship between personal story and academic research. Your personal material may have a place in your book, or it may act as an invisible driver to the narrative. This course will help you to decide how to engage with that material, and give you the tools with which to deliver it.
What you will learn
This course provides you with
- A closer look at scholarly books that have successfully integrated personal material into the core of the book without losing the rigour of academic research
- Tools to develop a more intimate voice as you balance the closeness and granularity of scenes with the retrospection of narrative distance
- An understanding of how structure and pacing can develop tension, both on the micro-level of the line and on the manuscript as a whole
- Editorial feedback (written or oral) from your instructor on your newly-written work, with clear signposts for how to proceed to the next draft.
How it will be taught
We will study excerpts from books that have successfully incorporated personal material into academic work, as well as works of creative nonfiction. We will study work by authors such as Angela Garcia, Helen Macdonald, Ross Gay, and others, learning from them the breadth of what’s possible in this vibrant form of writing.
The class combines three modes of learning each week:
- Craft lessons – close study of the language, voice, and craft tools, assessing their possibilities for narrative and the choices behind them
- Writing exercises – hands-on practice applying craft techniques to your own material
- Feedback – structured response to your writing from the instructor and your peers
What you will get
Through close reading, discussion, practise, and feedback, we will together look at how personal material, and our intimate connection to it, can be a driver in a lively and rigorous piece of writing. Whether it takes central stage in the writing or acts as a quieter cog in the work, you will have learned how to braid the details of your research and the experiences of your life to communicate with vigour and clarity. The class will give you time and space to both practice writing as well as give and receive feedback in a safe and intimate group setting.