Texts

Craft Essays on e-reserve On E-reserve at Zimmerman Library (password: study523)
Course website: www.unm.edu/~gmartin

Overview

This is a writing workshop focused on revision. Each student will write two new pieces of creative nonfiction. We will workshop each piece twice. Then, after intense deliberation, each of you will choose one of these two essays to workshop a third time and then, after revising it a fourth time, you will send it out at the end of the semester to six literary magazines.

The goal of the course is to push you to produce more than you thought you could, to break down what Jane Smiley calls “evasion strategies.”

The particular subgenre of creative nonfiction you may turn in to the workshop is wide open: Autobiographical Narrative (an essay that has the dramatic structure of a short story); a Lyric Meditation (a more “classic” Montaigne-like essay that is structured meditatively or philosophically or associatively); Travel Writing; Literary Journalism. A hybrid essay that combines two or more of these forms. It's all fair game.

Because of the structure and demands of the class, my assumption is that you have a solid grounding in creative nonfiction, and so readings for discussion in class will be limited to essays on craft.

Literary Magazine Subscriptions

Each student will subscribe to two literary magazines which have had essays named as Notable Essays in a recent volume of Best American Essays. Read all the essays in the magazines you receive during the semester, and at the end of the class party, distribute the one you judge to be the best to the rest of the class--along with a brilliant one-paragraph discussion of its merits. A list of magazines, with website addresses and subscription information, can be found in the Publishing Your Work section of the course website.

Other Suggested Reading (for fun, in all your spare time)

Lopate's THE ART OF THE PERSONAL ESSAY

Oate's THE BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS OF THE CENTURY

BEST AMERICAN ESSAYS: This comes out each year. You should buy it and read it thoroughly each year.

Keep a Treadmill Journal: See craft essay on e-reserve.

Course Requirements

Five creative nonfiction drafts: (50%)

Important note #1: the writing that you turn in to workshop must be, in some recognizable way (more on this) creative nonfiction. (No fiction.)

Important note #2: Some of you are working on booklength projects, and so will not be turning in pieces that stand alone at 10-25 pages. Fine. If so, make sure to provide at the beginning of your workshop submissions a single spaced paragraph or so of the background your readers will need to give you feedback.

Peer Responses: (20%) 1-2 page, typed, responses for each of your peer’s manuscripts submitted for workshop. These peer responses are to be distributed to me, and to the author of the workshopped piece, on the day the work is discussed. These responses should focus on what you take to be one of the work’s deeper concerns, its situation and story, your thoughts on how the essay is evolving, draft to draft, as well as suggestions for revision.

Important Note: These responses need to substantively conform to the prompts in the Peer Response handout.

Treadmill Journal (10%)

Essay Submission (20%) Bring to the end-of-semester party at my house, six stamped envelopes. These six envelopes should be addressed to six different literary magazines. In each of these envelopes are:

A cover letter.
A copy of one of the two essays you worked on during the semester.
A self-addressed, stamped envelope.

I'll take your submissions to the post office the following day and ceremoniously drop them in the slot. For examples of cover letters, see the Publishing Your Work section of the course website. If this course requirement makes you feel like you need to check yourself into the ER (rapid pulse, dizziness, nausea), please come see me. (But you still have to do it.)

Workshop Logistics and Etiquette

Try to think of the workshop as a tentative process of helping the writer make this piece better, or as is often the case, make a future piece better. Everything we say will be wrong, or partial, or skewed by our own aesthetics. You will hear startlingly different analyses of your work from the class. Writing is not democratic, and you can’t possibly listen to all the voices in the class. Go away from the workshop with the reading and critique that is most helpful to you. Choose, as your favorite critic in the class, the peer who seems most in sympathy with your work. Then make friends with that person, get together outside of class, share your work, and drink caffeine. Good workshops always extend beyond the classroom.

1. Manuscripts are due at specific times. You need to deliver copies of your work, for each of your peers and for me, one week before you are to be workshopped. There is no flexibility in this scheme. The workshop’s effectiveness depends on the timely distribution of your work. Late essays will not be workshopped. You have been charged a $20 fee for the course towards photocopying for workshop using the department's kind, able workstudy students. Your essay should be given to the department secretary to be stamped and dated at least 48 hours before you need to distribute your work to the class. If you cannot meet this deadline, you are on your own.

2. Essays should be typed, double-spaced, numbered, 12pt font, with one inch margins, on one side of the page, with no cover pages, and stapled. Also include: your name, the course number and section, my name, the date, the title.

3. Correct grammar, usage, punctuation and spelling are expected. A piece flawed by pervasive proofreading or mechanical errors will be mocked.

4. Attendance and participation are mandatory. If you miss class more than twice it will affect your grade.