Today in Creative Nonfiction

Hope you all enjoyed the festival! Today we'll do a festival re-cap, then discuss the art of revision.

For an in-class revision exercise, please be sure you have a copy of your Tiny Masters exercise. (If you don't have a copy, you can use a piece from your encyclopedia/blog entries, too.)

Some mysterious concepts to ponder between now and then:

Revision = re-vision.
Essay = from essais: French. Meaning to attempt or try out.
E.B. White: "Writing is an act of faith." Multiple acts of faith.

For Thursday: Bring copies of your festival-inspired pieces or post them to your blogs. Begin reading Paris of Appalachia by Brian O'Neill.

Tiny Masters: An Exercise in Finding What Matters

Here's an excerpt from a Brevity piece by writer/teacher Sherry Simpson. The piece is called Tiny Masters: An Artful Trick to Writing Personal Essays. Read the full piece here: http://www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/craft/craft_simpson9_08.htm

The notion of tiny masters comes from author and New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, who once explained that she’s most interested in writing about people who are masters of their “tiny domains.” (She meant orchid thieves, 10-year-old boys, female bullfighters, Maui surfer girls, and The Shaggs, among others.) Adapting her approach to personal essays can help writers discover a rich subject near at hand – something they already know a lot about, something that interests them. It helps shift the focus from writing exclusively about the self to writing about knowledge, ideas and processes. As writers explore their mastery on the page, they instinctively begin playing with structure and making connections they never knew existed. Meaning begins emerging naturally from their drafts, pointing the way to future revisions.

This is how it works:

* Make a list of 10 things of which you’re a master. Include talents, skills, hobbies, qualities of character. I've created many lists over the years, and they surprise me every time: Making enchilada sauce. Building fires. Finding beach glass. Crossing rivers. Writing thank you notes. Collecting maps. Procrastinating. Teaching tricks to my dog.

* Choose a mastery that appeals and free-write about it. Describe how to do it, when you learned it, what you accomplish, where you do it – whatever comes to mind.

* Now write about a person connected with this mastery. Maybe it’s the person who taught you how to do it, someone you’ve done it for, or someone who discouraged you from doing it. Include details that capture the person’s personality or mannerisms.

* Next, write about a particular scene or event that involves your mastery and/or your person. Look for opportunities to add dialogue and setting.

By this point, writers usually have created a rough but promising first draft, even if it’s still in pieces. They’ve chosen something that’s important to them without worrying about whether it’s important enough. Stories, recollections, incidents and ideas start coalescing around their subject. Interrogating the draft reveals other connections and possibilities: Why this topic? What don’t I know? What information or background would enlarge the story? Why do I even like doing this? What is this about? What is this about really?


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Try this in your class binder. Be your own tiny master.

Welcome Back!

Hope you had a great break!

This week, we'll be workshopping your honest essays. Please be sure to bring copies for class on Tuesday.

Your writing assignment for the week will be to do one peer critique of one of the essays from class. You should write a one-page, single-spaced response to the author of the piece you've chosen. Your response should offer specific feedback on what's working in the piece and what could be improved in revision. Make two copies of your critique and bring them to class on Thursday. I'll keep one copy and give the other copy to the author.

About next week:

Next week is our Writers Festival. It's always a wonderful time and I hope you're looking forward to it.

Here's the plan:

Please attend the Writers Festival events all week. To get a passing participation grade for the week, you must attend at least two events. More is much better. There will be sign-up sheets at all events. (Bonus: if you need Village credit, all the events offer that, too.)

To allow you to attend the festival, we won't be meeting in class next week. Your written assignment is to write about one of the festival events. You can write about the event in many different ways. If you'd like to take a personal essay approach, that would be fine. If the event sparks a memoir, terrific. If you'd like to try your hand at reportage, feel free to ask the visiting writers questions and record their answers. Or, if you'd like to invoke Amy Krouse Rosenthal, you could attend all events and write small entries about each one. It's really up to you. Just be sure you write about an event that inspired, moved, provoked or otherwise changed you. As you know, in Creative Nonfiction, passion means a lot.

Your assignments will be due on Thursday, April 1. Post your assignments to your blogs.

The Festival schedule again is:

* Monday, March 22 -- Faculty/alumni reading/festival kick-off, 7 p.m.
* Tuesday, March 23 -- Fiction writer/poet Kim Chinquee, craft talk at noon and reading at 7 p.m.
* Wednesday, March 24 -- Fiction writer Sherrie Flick, reading at 7 p.m.
* Thursday, March 25 -- Poets/memoirists Gerry Stern and Anne Marie Macari, reading at 7 p.m.
* Friday, March 26 -- Fiction writer/poet Joseph Bathanti, craft talk at noon and reading at 7 p.m.

All events will be in the Village Hall coffeehouse. Books will be available for purchase at the readings. Refreshments follow the readings. Village credit is available for all events.

Spring Break Assignment: One Honest Essay

Stephen Elliott quotes Philip Lopate here: “Strive for honesty, but admit that you can delude yourself as well as the next guy. Ironically, it is this skepticism that uniquely equips the personal essayist for the difficult climb into honesty. So often the ‘plot’ of a personal essay, its drama, its suspense, consists in watching how far the essayist can drop past his or her psychic defenses toward deeper levels of honesty. One may speak of a vertical dimension in the form: if the essayist can delve further underneath, until we feel the topic has been handled as honestly, as fairly as possible, then at least one essential condition of a successful personal essay has been met."

Over break, write an essay in which you strive for honesty. The subject's your choice -- wide open. But be sure to choose a moment you care deeply about, something that matters deeply to you.

The length is open, too. As long as a love letter. As long as it takes.

Due Tuesday after break. Bring copies to share with the class.

Finders Keepers

For Thursday, pick the Encyclopedia entry from class that resonated most with you. Which entry made you laugh? Which entry made you think? Which entry made you say "ah" (not at all like the kind of ah you make at the doctor's office, by the way)? Which entry did you think about long after class was over?

Look closer. What makes that entry special? What techniques did the writer use? What do you admire most? What can you learn from the entry (writing-wise/life-wise)?

Now answer this: What makes writing good? Can you say in one or two sentences what you value?

And this: How is this entry an example of good writing?

Cite the entry and its author here in the comments section. Then jump over to your own blog and answer the above questions (and more, as needed).

We'll discuss on Thursday.

This Week in Creative Nonfiction

We'll finish workshopping your Encyclopedia blogs, then move on to a discussion of Stephen Elliott's Adderall Diaries as a meta-memoir. Be sure to finish reading the book by Thursday. We'll have a very short quiz on the book and basic concepts.

To add to your reading joy, here's an interview with Stephen Elliott you might find useful: http://www.smithmag.net/memoirville/2009/09/23/interview-stephen-elliott-author-of-the-adderall-diaries/

National Book Award Winner Gerald Stern Headlines Pitt-Greensburg Writers Festival March 22-26

(Please note: As part of your class requirements, plan to attend at least two Writers Festival events. More is always better!)

Poet and Essayist Gerald Stern, winner of the National Book Award, headlines this year’s Writers Festival at the University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg.

The week-long festival begins Monday, March 22 and continues through Friday, March 26. The festival features readings, lectures and book signings from nationally known poets and writers. All events will be in the Village Hall Coffeehouse and are free and open to the public.

Stern, the author of sixteen poetry collections and a memoir, reads at 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 25 with poet Anne Marie Macari.

The full festival schedules kicks off with a reading from Pitt-Greensburg faculty authors and alumni on Monday, March 22 at 7 p.m. Faculty authors include Judith Vollmer, Stephen Murabito, Richard Blevins and Lori Jakiela. Alumni readers for Monday’s event include Tim Gebadlo, Shane Duschack, Meghan Tutolo, Joseph Reed and Adam Matcho.

On Tuesday, Kim Chinquee, fiction writer and prose poet, will give a craft lecture at noon and a reading/book signing at 7 p.m. Chinquee is the author of two books of fictions/prose poems – Oh Baby (Ravenna Press) and Pretty (White Pine Press). Opening readers will be Kelly Scarff and Joy Pinkney.

On Wednesday, Sherrie Flick, author of the novel Reconsidering Happiness (University of Nebraska Press) and a flash-fiction collection I Call This Flirting (Flume Press), will read at 7 p.m. Opening readers will be Brian Cummins and Ashleigh Chicko.

Thursday features Stern and poet Anne Marie Macari. Stern is the author of 16 poetry collections and a memoir. In addition to the National Book Award, he’s received the National Jewish Book Award, The Ruth Lilly Prize and the Wallace Stevens Award. Macari is the author of three poetry collections, most recently She Heads Into the Wilderness (Autumn House Press). Opening readers will be Liz Russell and Jeff Sharon. They’ll read at 7 p.m.

The festival wraps up on Friday with Joseph Bathanti, who will give a craft talk at noon and a reading at 7 p.m. Bathanti is the author of 10 books of fiction, poetry and nonfiction. His latest is Restoring Sacred Art (poems from Star Cloud Press). Opening reader will be David Humbertson.

The Writers Festival is supported by funds from Pitt-Greensburg’s Student Government Association, Office of Academic Affairs and The Humanities Villages. It’s co-sponsored by Pendulum, the campus’ twice-yearly student literary magazine; the Written/Spoken series; and the Pitt-Greensburg Writing Program. For more information, contact Lori Jakiela, associate professor of English and festival director, at 724-836-7481 or loj@pitt.edu.