Creative Containers for Creative Nonfiction with Courtney Gilette via Zoom

What different shapes can the personal essay take? Can it be a how-to guide? An encyclopedia? A student loan bill? What freedom can be found in telling a story in an untraditional way? Experimenting with the containers we choose for creative nonfiction allows us to approach the craft of creative nonfiction in a new dynamic way.

In this craft workshop we’ll look at unique forms of creative nonfiction and identify what makes them successful. We’ll examine how the craft elements of voice, narrative distance and persona can lend themselves to creating essays in different containers. Writers will be given at least two generative prompts to experiment with new forms for a personal essay and have the opportunity to share their ideas and questions.

Registration for this 4hour intensive workshop is $124. Please register at:

www.writerscenter.org/calendar/nonfiction/

This workshop will take place via Zoom. The Zoom link will be emailed immediately at the time of registration. Please check spam filter / promotions filter for this message. Email admin@writerscenter.org with any questions.

Please note: The Altman Persons of Color Scholarships are free and given on a first come, first served basis. Please notify us right away if your plans change and you cannot attend the class. We will then reopen the slot so another student may register. Thank you in advance for this consideration. Please sign up for no more than one scholarship slot per month. Thank you.

Courtney Gillette is a writer and teacher whose essays and book reviews have appeared in BuzzFeed, Tin House, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Lambda Literary, Kirkus Reviews, and Medium, among others.

In 2013, her work was chosen by A.M. Homes for The Masters Review and in 2015 she won Gertrude Press’ Prose Contest. She has been named an Emerging Writer Fellow at Aspen Words Summer Words and a finalist for the BuzzFeed Emerging Writer Fellowship.

Since 2015 she has published one essay on the first of every month at courtneygillette.substack.com. An adjunct professor of creative writing at Columbia University’s Narrative Medicine program, she lives in the Hudson Valley with one librarian and three cats.