In this poetry and creative nonfiction workshop, students will read and discuss a variety of contemporary poems and essays that reflect the cultural and aesthetic diversity of creative writing today. Using readings and discussion as a springboard, students will participate in in-class writing exercises, guided assignments, and work towards developing their own poems and personal essays. Students will have the opportunity to develop their unique voices through writing and workshopping original pieces. We will embrace the idea that writing can simultaneously be a fun, inventive, and serious way of engaging with the personal and witnessing the world.
Katie Marks, assistant professor of writing, received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College. She is the writing department’s major advising coordinator and she teaches Intro to Essay, Personal Essay, Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, and Image-Text, among other courses. Recently, she was the co-writer of the headphone walking play, The Missing Chapter, which was produced by The Cherry Arts in 2018. She is always trying to learn something new. Current interests include how to make corn tortillas from scratch and how to give her cat nightly blood pressure medicine without it causing mutually assured destruction.