This primary workshop meets each morning from 10 to 12.
Our own lives are ripe with stories, and the current boom in literary nonfiction provides extra motivation for us to tell about our unique lives. Students will learn how to employ vivid detail and description, characterization, dialogue, scenes, and point of view to bring their personal stories, thoughts, and reflections to life on the page. We will also discuss some of the challenges and opportunities that arise when writing about real people and real situations and look at how our personal experiences give voice to what has been unheard. Doing daily writing exercises and reading a variety of memoirs and personal essays will help illustrate how wonderfully flexible and creative this form can be.
Amy Weaver Quan’s personal essays have been recognized by New Letters and New Millenium Writings, and she has given numerous public readings, including a nearly two-decade run in the annual University of California, Santa Cruz Faculty Reading Series. For her environmental writing, the University of Montana, Missoula invited Amy to participate in their Environmental Writing Institute; more recently, she was selected to participate in the 2018 Orion Environmental Writing Workshop in the category of creative nonfiction. She is Vice Chair of the Conference on College Composition & Communication (CCCC)’s Standing Group on Creative Nonfiction.