“I had a friend who…”: Writing Friendship with Chen Chen (via Zoom)

Inspired by recent cultural discourse on the complex power of friendship, this multi-genre generative workshop explores a variety of approaches to writing about/from friendship. We’ll start with a discussion of Mary Ruefle’s Pushcart Prize-winning essay “Dear Friends” (one of her best, most moving prose pieces, I think) before taking a look at a handful of friendship-focused piece by a range of poets and writers as potential models for our own writing. I’ll provide some writing prompts, including one that involves texts/DMs/emails with friends. We’ll think about what friendship means in a contemporary era of friending and following, subscribing and subtweeting, a global pandemic and generational divides as well as intersections. How do we make friends today? How do we maintain friendships? How do we, when needed, “break up” with friends in ways that don’t sound like a memo from HR? These deeply personal questions, among others (including the more craft-related ones!), will drive this session, this gathering of texts and— one can hope—friends.

NB: This class will be taught on zoom. Need-based, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ scholarships for this class open on Dec 1 and are due on Dec 15th. Please read all course guidelines for HVWC before registering for any class.