The Front Page News
NYU
I'm teaching a Master Class in Creative Non-fiction at New York University this semester. Here's the syllabus, in case you'd like to follow along:
What is a non-fiction essay? Is it a written inquiry? A meditation? A memoir? Does it concern the outside world or just probe the writer's interior world? Can it be funny? Does it have answers or does it just raise questions? Does it argue a point or is it an impartial view of the world?
As near as I can figure, an essay can be all of the above -- a query, a reminiscence, a persuasive tract, an exploration; it can look inward or outward; it can crack a lot of jokes. What is important is that it take its tone and momentum from the explicit or implied presence of the writer and the distinctiveness of the writer's individual perspective.
This workshop will focus on hearing voices -- that is, hearing our own voices as writers, hearing the voices in the great examples of non-fiction that we'll look at together, and hearing the voices in our subjects as we try to bring them to life. While the first-person narrator is an important part of our examination, I will emphasize writing that reaches beyond the personal memoir and considers subjects out in the world, while at the same time having a strong sense of the writer's vision. Be prepared to write not only about your own experiences, but to write essays about reported subjects.
Each week, we will discuss the work of writers such as Joseph Mitchell, John McPhee, and Joan Didion, examining each one's distinctive style and authority. We will also read my own work, and I will be able to give you a detailed understanding of the process behind the pieces we read. Through in-class exercises, assigned essays, and class discussions of each other's work, we will work to develop the skills of non-fiction writing. We will also be reading and discussing some of my work, with the goal of understanding in detail the process behind them.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
The Literary Journalists by Norman Sims
Literary Journalism by Norman Sims and Mark Kramer
The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup by Susan Orlean (selections)
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin
Great Plains by Ian Frazier
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Attendance and Participation:
Because this is a workshop, your presence and timeliness is essential. Please come fully prepared to write, read, and discuss; when we analyze each other's work, please be thoughtful and respectful of each other.
Writing:
You will be keeping a personal journal of observations and snippets -- the stuff of everyday life that might find its way into an essay you'll write or lead to a topic you want to explore. We will review these regularly and discuss how to go about collecting details and anecdotes as well as inspiration for essays. In addition, you'll be writing three five-page essays -- one topical, one observational, and one personal. Those will be shared with the class; bring copies on the days they are due. You will be expected to do a serious revision, incorporating the discussion we will have, and to resubmit the pieces to me. The ability and willingness to improve your piece will be an important part of our work together, and of your grade.
Each of you will be assigned to lead one of the critique/analysis of the pieces we will read together and submit a summary of your critique to me in written form.
Late work will not be accepted.
Conferences:
Please meet with me at least once during the semester to discuss your work in progress, your proposed essay ideas, and your experience in the class. I will also be happy to meet with you anytime during my office hours and I'm happy to weigh in as your work progresses.
Grades:
Your writing -- the three essays and your journal -- will count for 60% of your grade. Your class participation will count for 20%, and your critique and analysis of the assigned material will count for 20%. I will not be grading you on your innate raw talent as much as your effort, your diligence, and your thoughtfulness in your work.
Plagiarism:
Referring to or paraphrasing someone else's writing, with proper, clear credit given, is fine. Anything else is totally unacceptable, and any suspected plagiarism will be passed along to the head of the department. I will also be relentless in emphasizing the non-fiction part of this endeavor; do not present anything in your work as true if it didn't really happen. This is essential!
CLASS SCHEDULE
Week 1 (January 19) To Begin
Introduction
Discussion of personal journals
Reading and discussion: The Literary Journalists -- introduction, McPhee, "Travels in Georgia", Didion "Salvador". Please come prepared to discuss these at the first class
Week 2 (January 26) Channeling Voices
The writer's voice versus the voice of the subject: Hearing well and writing what you hear. In-class exercise of capturing voice.
Reading and discussion: "American Man Age Ten" (Bullfighter), Jane Kramer, "Cowboy" (Literary Journalists), "The Rivermen", Joseph Mitchell.
Writing assignment: First short essay capturing another voice, due Week 3.
Week 3 (February 2) Where to Start?
Structure of an essay, and the essential question of how to begin.
Reading and discussion: Great Plains (chapter 1 - 3), Sara Davidson, "Real Property" and Mark Kramer, "Invasive Procedures" (Literary Journalists). Workshop/revise six of the class essays (Group A).
Week 4 (February 9) In and Out
The vexing question of first person. Where is the writer in the piece? How to negotiate the first-person perspective.
Reading and discussion: The Orchid Thief (first half).
Workshop second group of the class essays (Group B). Revisions are due Week 7.
Writing assignment: Second short essay, first person but not personal, due Week 5
Week 5 (February 16) There But Not There
Personalizing material learned from afar: how historical and reflective essays can convey the writer's voice.
Continue discussion of The Orchid Thief.
Reading: Bill Barich, "Magic" (Literary Journalists)
Workshop Group A essays.
Review of personal journals
Week 6 (February 23) Becalmed
The dangerous middle section of essays, where the going gets slow. Structure, momentum, pacing, rhythm.
Reading: Mark Singer, "Court Buff" (Literary Journalists). Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia (first half)
"The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup" (essay)
Workshop Group B essays. Revisions are due Week 9.
Week 7 (March 2) Nuts and Bolts
How to immerse yourself in a subject, how to choose a subject, how to understand what you are trying to write.
In class discussion of how and what makes a story worth pursuing.
Reading: "The Lady and the Tigers" (from Bullfighter)
Review and sharing of personal journals
Week 8 (March 9) Emotions
The dispassionate writer, the cool essay, the deep feelings -- and how they can learn to live together
Reading: Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking
In-class writing exercise
> > > SPRING BREAK – NO CLASS ON MARCH 16 < < <
Week 9 (March 23) Anybody Out There?
Imagining the reader. Who are you talking to? How do you address them?
Reading: "Lifelike" (Bullfighter), "Trina and Trina" by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (Literary Journalism)
Writing assignment: Third essay, writing about the unfamiliar, due Week 11
Week 10 (March 30) Drawing It Together
Discussion: The Orchid Thief (second half)
Review of personal journals
Exercise and further discussion on revision
Week 11 (April 6) And in the End...
Working on conclusions -- how to bring a piece of writing to a peaceful ending.
Reading: In Patagonia (second half).
Workshop Group A essays, revisions due Week 13
Week 12 (April 13) Word Love
Language choices and polishing sentences: Refining the details in your writing
Reading: TBA
In-class writing exercise
Workshop Group B essays. Revisions due Week 14
Week 13 (April 20) First Curtain Call
Reviewing personal journals as complete collections; what did you hear and what did you miss? What did you learn about listening?
Reading: Up in the Old Hotel, Joseph Mitchell
Group A -- come prepared to read one of your essays out loud
Week 14 (April 27) Ask the Author
Come prepared to ask me final questions about process and choices in the remaining pieces of The Bullfighter.
Group B -- come prepared to read one of your essays out loud.
Stacked up
This is the trailer for the episode of StackedUp that I just shot -- a cool new website about authors and books:
Postcard
Grub Street, the Boston organization devoted to teaching, preaching, and supporting writers, is doing its annual fundraiser -- and before you run screaming in the other direction, take a look: A bunch of writers, including me, have made postcards that are being auctioned off, proceeds to go to Grub Street. The postcards are actually pretty cool -- take a look here http://www.grubstreet.org/index.php?id=201
Great Nonfiction!
Thanks for all the great non-fiction suggestions in response to my question on Twitter. Lots of the replies did include the hashtag so they were easy to find, but there are a number of them that didn't have the hashtag that you might not have seen. I've tried to compile the list, a bit haphazardly, so please bear with me:
By Title
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush by Eric Newby
Behind the Wall: A Journey through China by Colin Thubron
Voices of the Old Sea by Norman Lewis
Dreaming in Code by Scott Rosenberg
The Outlaw Sea by William Langewiesche
Shoes Outside the Door by Michael Downing
The Duke of Deception by Geoffrey Wolff
This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff
Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem & Jonathan Prince
Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas
Honor Thy Father by Gay Talese
Black Hawk Down by M. Bowden
The Dark Side by Jane Mayer
And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts
Hiroshima by John Hersey
Master of the Senate by Robert A. Caro
The Assassins' Gate by George Packer
The Forever War by Dexter Filkins
The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
Natural History of Senses/Moon by Whale Light by by Diane Ackerman
Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas
My Ears Are Bent by Joseph Mitchell
U.S. Journal by Calvin Trillin
Mr Personality by Mark Singer
Fame & Obscurity by Gay Talese
Levels Of The Game by John McPhee
Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick
Parting the Water/Pillar of Fire/At Canaan's Edge by Taylor Branch
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
In Patagonia/Songlines by Bruce Chatwin
Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
Into the Wild/Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
Killings by Calvin Trillin
Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
Song of the Dodo by David Quammen
Rebellion in the Backlands by Euclides Da Cunha
Into the Heart of Borneo by Redmond O'Hanlon
Pliny the Elder's Natural History by Trevor Murphy
Up in Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace
Awakenings by Oliver Sacks
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold by Gay Talese
Been in the Storm So Long by Leon F. Litwack
House by Tracy Kidder
The Year of Magical Thinking/Slouching Towards Bethlehem/The White Album by Joan Didion
Monster by John Gregory Dunne
On Bullfighting by A.L. Kennedy
Nothing Remains the Same by Wendy Lesser
Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer
Stasiland by Anna Funder
Ten Days that Shook the World by John Reed
Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
We Wish to Inform You ... by Philip Gourevitch
Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralnick
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
Friday Night Lights by H G Bissinger
The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson
Judgment Ridge by Dick Lehr and Mitchell Zuckoff
The Color of Water by James McBride
Dispatches by Michael Herr
A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan
Personal History by Katharine Graham
Homicide by David Simon
Balkan Ghosts by Robert D. Kaplan
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver
A Nearly Normal Life by Charles L. Mee
The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert
Jane Addams, 20 Years at Hull House by Brian Ogilvie
The Science of Describing by Brian W. Ogilvie
Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
The Dialogues of Plato by Plato
Confessions of an Opium Eater by Thomas De Quincey
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Here Is New York by E.B. White
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross
A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Open Veins of Latin America by E. Galeano
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Homicide by David Simon
Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer
The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
Ghost Wars/The Bin Ladens by Steve Coll
The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster
Art Objects by Jeanette Winterson
On Photography by Susan Sontag
Hopper by Mark Strand
Lawdy, Lawdy, He's Great by Mark Kram
Pure Heart by William Nack
My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan
Travels in the Land of the Flies by Aldo Buzzi
Wildwood by Roger Deakin
Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin
Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr
Ex Libris/Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
First In His Class : A Biography Of Bill Clinton by David Maraniss
Days of Grace by Arthur Ashe
Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr
Rats/Meadowlands by Robert Sullivan
Woman by Natalie Angier
History of God by Karen Armstrong
Maus I and II by Art Spiegelman
In The Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick
Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas
Savage Beauty by Nancy Milford
They Were So Young by Amanda Vaill
Such, Such Were the Joys by George Orwell
The Undertaker by Thomas Lynch
Where the Suckers Moon by Randall Rothenberg
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
Are You Somebody? by Nuala O'Faolain
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin
Bonk by Mary Roach
The Sky Isn't Visible From Here by Felicia Sullivan
A Beautiful Mind by Sylvia Nasar
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
The Rise Of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Five Seasons by Roger Angell
Ball Four by Jim Bouton
Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years by Michael Palin
Oscar Wilde by Frank Harris
Night of the Gun by David Carr
True Notebooks by Mark Salzman
Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik
The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris
Boys of My Youth by Joanne Beard
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
Gulag by Anne Applebaum
Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris by A. J. Liebling
The Living and The Dead by Paul Hendrickson
Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson
The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer
Guns, Germa And Steel by Jared Diamond
The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
A Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz
Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore
The Disappearance by Genvieve Jurgensen
The Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote (trilogy)
Down and Out In Paris and London by George Orwell
Fire in a Canebrake by Laura Wexler
Keats by Andrew Motion
Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee
Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor
Boss by Mike Royko
What it Takes by Richard Ben Cramer
Perfect Storm by Sebastien Junger
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand
Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder by Lawrence Wechsler
Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen
Colter/The Ninemile Wolves by Rick Bass
A Dog's History of America by Mark Derr
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Small Boys Unit by Denis Johnson
West with the Night by Beryl Markham
Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar
Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain
All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
Salvation on Sand Mountain by Dennis Covington
A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman
The Terror Dream by Susan Faludi
Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
The Spirit of St. Louis by Charles Lindbergh
Longitude by Dava Sobel
Wallflower at the Orgy/Crazy Salad/I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron
A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
Authors
Robert D. Kaplan
Ryszard Kapuscinski
William Zinsser
Wendell Berry
Ted Conover
Robert Caro
Studs Terkel
Grant Pick
Jonathan Raban
Malcolm Gladwell
David Sedaris
Robert Sapolsky
Frans de Waal
David McCullough
More news...
All content copyright © 2002-2008 Susan Orlean.