Joan Didion’s Creative Nonfiction

All Levels | We will read the best of Joan Didion’s personal essays and talk about the ways in which they changed literature forever. By centering a woman’s perspective in the major events of her day, and by combining the instincts of a reporter with the techniques of a novelist, Didion’s work did things that had never been done on the page before. Students should purchase or borrow Didion’s essay collections The White Album (1979) and After Henry (1992), as we will be reading selections from each. Students will be given the opportunity to complete optional writing prompts inspired by Didion’s moods and modes.