Do you have an essay idea you've been kicking around for a while, or a draft of an essay that you need motivation, support and community to help bring toward completion?
In this month-long generative class, participants will spend time in and out of class conceiving of, writing and revising a nonfiction piece of importance to them, be it memoir, essay, lyric or something in between.
We'll use class time to study the art and craft of writing--such as structure, sentence musicality and diction--and to undertake writing and revision exercises that help move our work forward. We'll also discuss work from giants like Leslie Jamison, Toni Morrison, Eula Biss, Ross Gay and others, to better understand how these essays function and what makes them sing.
Lauren Markham is writer and educator based in Berkeley who writes fiction, essays, and literary journalism. Her book, The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life, was published by Crown in 2017, and was the winner of the Ridenhour Prize, the Northern California Book Award, silver medal winner of the California Book Award, shortlisted for a Lukas Award and the L.A. Times Book Prize, and longlisted for a Pen America Award.
Lauren's essays and reportage have appeared in outlets such as Harper’s, Guernica, the New York Times, The Guardian, The New Republic, Orion, and Virginia Quarterly Review, where she is a contributing editor. She has published fiction in Narrative, The American Literary Review, and Drunken Boat. In addition teaching at Left Margin LIT, she also teaches in the MFA in writing programs at Ashland University and the University of San Francisco.
Click here to learn more about Lauren.