Building Stories from Quiet Moments [Josh Potter]

This class will take place via video-conferencing (Zoom), Pacific Time.

All Levels | When writing memoir, personal essays, or creative nonfiction about your own life, it’s easy to think that you don’t have enough adventure or drama to carry a narrative. This class will teach you how to build compelling narratives out of the small moments in your life by mining them for inner meaning. We will read modern masters of the personal essay — Ali Smith, Maggie Nelson, and Louise Erdrich — to determine what moments gave rise to their most powerful essays. Using generative exercises, we will build paragraphs, scenes, and entire pieces from the ground up. Students will gain a number of ideas for personal stories and road maps for where their narratives may go.