College of Arts and Humanities

IMF 52318 Nonfiction: Putting the Hard Stuff on Paper: Memoir L

IMF 52318 Nonfiction: Putting the Hard Stuff on Paper: Memoir L

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Instructor

Patricia Feeney

Class Type 

Craft/Literature
[Note that this is a Lit & Craft course, not a workshop course; however, it will include a workshop element.]

Course Description

This craft/literature course explores the most intimate of memoirs: personal trauma that captures a universal truth. Drawing on the insights of respected memoirists—Mary Carr, Andre Dubose III, Kate Bornstein, Kyoko Mori, Michael Patrick MacDonald, and others—this course examines how acclaimed writers overcame emotional obstacles to turn traumatic events into literature. Though this course addresses craft elements integral to the genre, it reaches past these components to examine the emotional excavation necessary to put the hard stuff on paper.

Textbook

Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs by Fennelly, Beth Ann 9780393356489

Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma by Brooks, Melanie 9780807078815

Fearless Confessions by Silverman, Sue William 9780820331669