This 6-week course covers various essay forms—braided, fragmented, borrowed form, and experimental—as well as points of view beyond the “I", including 2nd person, 3rd person, 1st person plural, even essays that combine more than one point of view. We’ll meet each Saturday (beginning at 11:00 AM CST) for 2 hours, and each week, you’ll write an experiment (350-750 words) and receive feedback from me. During the last session, you will have the opportunity to share your favorite experiment with the group. We’ll read work by Hanif Abdurraqib, Jaquira Díaz, Lily Hoang, Sarah Manguso, Angela Morales, Ira Sukrungruang, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, and more. Join us! The Zoom Link will be sent to you one week before the course begins.

“I think we are well-advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were,” writes Joan Didion in her essay, “On Keeping a Notebook.” In this four week class, we’ll read essays by writers engaged with their younger selves—and you’ll write experiments (350-750 words) each week to connect with and understand the person you used to be. We’ll read work by Marcia Aldrich, William Bradley, Bernard Cooper, Steve Edwards, Kiese Laymon, T Kira Madden, Jamila Osman, and more.

A 2-hour seminar on how to close essays. We’ll consider the essay’s tradition of suspending rather than ending by discussing the examples from the model essays, and you’ll have a chance to share how endings factor into your writing process. We’ll end with a Q&A. Join us! The Zoom link and model essays will be emailed to you one week before the seminar.

In this 2-day seminar, we’ll discuss how important it is to establish the When and Where for your essay and your persona (the “I”). We’ll look at the openings of model essays to consider how writers ground the reader in time and place. We’ll also discuss when and why such details may be omitted. On the 2nd night, we’ll hear your (revised) openings of existing drafts or openings for new drafts. The Zoom link and model essays will be emailed to you one week before the seminar.

A 2-hour seminar on how to open essays—from first words to sentences to paragraphs. We’ll look at examples, along with a few patterns in essay openings from classical to contemporary. During the seminar, you’ll experiment by writing your own essay opening and have the opportunity to share it with the group. We’ll end with a Q&A. Join us! The Zoom link and model essays will be emailed to you one week before the seminar.

In this ninety-minute seminar, we’ll discuss ways to give your reader a strong impression and/or image of the people in your essays (including self-portraiture). I’ll share excerpts from essays, along with stills from films, to help you think about new ways to make people known to your reader. We’ll take a break while you experiment with writing (self) portraits and come back together for the chance to share your amazing portraiture.

In this 2-hour seminar, we’ll look at ways various writers think about the concept of persona (the “I”) in their essays, and we’ll look at excerpts from essays to see how writers establish “to whom the thing happened,” as Virginia Woolf described the self in writing. You’ll do a persona inventory, followed by a discussion and Q&A. My goal is for you to leave inspired to return to essay drafts of your own to (re)shape the persona or to start new drafts knowing which persona the essay needs.