The personal essay is undergoing a renaissance. Bold new essayists such as Sarah Manguso and Maggie Nelson have turned it toward topics like motherhood and sexual identity while trimming the fat from the form, creating associative essays of epigrammatical snippets.

This one-day class will take a close look at the associative essays of Eula Biss, whose collection Notes from No Man’s Land won the National Book Critic’s Circle Award. We’ll dissect her work to learn about structure, tone, and patterning. Using in-class writing prompts, we'll write piecemeal sentences, revise them, and discuss what makes them effective (or not). We'll also explore the line between blather and brutal lies.  

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This class welcomes nonfiction writers of all backgrounds and skill levels.