English 523 Memoir & Literary Journalism
The Self and the Story
TH 4:00-6:30
Fall 2004
Greg Martin
Office: Humanities 257
Office Hours: T/TH 2:00-3:45 and by appointment
Phone: 277-6145
E-mail: gmartin@unm.edu
Course website: www.unm.edu/~gmartin
This is a writing workshop that focuses on the intersection between memoir and literary journalism—two sub-genres of creative nonfiction. Stephen Koch, in his great book, THE MODERN LIBRARY WRITER'S WORKSHOP, writes,
"The subject of your memoir cannot be you. Not you alone, anyway. A memoir must be about you and something--and that something should usually be your relationship to something intrinsically interesting and bigger than you... "You" are not a subject. Neither are "you" a story. You are a person."
So the real subject of any memoir, always, is a dynamic, a relationship. The same is true of literary, or personal journalism.
In both subgenres, the writer uses their own, subjective response to some larger subject as a means of making larger sense. But to what degree is this "larger sense" in service of self-definition? To what degree is it in service of something beyond the self, say, understanding the clash between two very different cultures as they struggle to care for an epileptic child? (The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down) To what degree is the writer implicated in the larger stakes of the drama they're writing about? Are they observer (and judge) or are they a participant? In many of the works we'll discuss this semester, the line between such clear roles is very much blurred. At whatever point along this broad continuum, the writer must find the right balance between the self and the story. How much of myself must I give over to the reader? How can I make my story larger, universal, without falling into confessionalism or self-absorption? How can I be both part of the story, a subjective participant, but not overshadow the subject?
In all the books and essays we will study, we will see how both memory and forgetting shape us, and shape our writing about real places, lives and events. We will also explore that blurred boundary where memory is both fiction and truth, and so where all personal writing is necessarily both truth and invention. We will explore the obligation creative nonfiction writers have to drama and to real lives: to their subjects, and to their readers. And in all this, we will explore how craft technique informs and guides.
Over the course of the semester, each member will write two pieces of creative nonfiction, one of which will be be revised as a final project. My hope is that the course will push you stylistically and technically, and encourage you to take emotional risks, to write what you could not have written before, to raise your standards for what you consider good writing, and then to meet those standards through the development of the habit of art. Finally,in order to write well, we must read well, and read as writers, and so this class will combine a balance between workshopping and the discussion of published authors.
Two creative nonfiction drafts, (20% each or 40% of your grade). Each of these pieces will be workshopped in class, according to a schedule that we will devise together.
Important note #1: the writing that you turn in to workshop must be, in some recognizable way (more on this) memoir or literary journalism. (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.
One revision (20% of your grade. Due at the end of the semester.) Note: Revisions should also include original drafts with my comments.
Peer Responses: (10%) 1 page, typed, responses (approximately 250 words) 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 compelling craft features.
Reading Responses: (20%) 1-2 page, typed, responses for each of the courses’ required readings. Again, these responses should focus on what you take to be one of the compelling craft features.
Important note #2: Late peer responses and reading responses will not receive credit, with one exception for each.
Craft Annotation: (10%) This is essentially an expanded reading response, where instead of analyzing one craft feature closely, you will analyze several craft features of a single work. The idea is for you to become deeply familiar with the techniques of a work that you greatly admire. You have the choice of focusing on: (1) a book, (2) a chapter from a book, or (3) an essay-length piece. Craft Annotations must be on works read in this class. Approximately 8-10 pages double-spaced.
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 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 memoir 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, Get thee to Kinkos!
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 bound. 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 graded down.
4. Attendance and participation are mandatory. If you miss class more than twice it will affect your grade—the more absences, the greater the effect.