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Workshop Descriptions & Instructors
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Cecile Goding “This Too Is Life”: Memoirs on Illness and Health On Thought: Writing Non-Narrative Essays School Daze: Stories from Childhood
“This Too Is Life”: Memoirs on Illness and Health When the body fails us, we are forced to focus on it. How could we not? Yet how many times have you heard this: “For heaven’s sake, others’ physical problems are boring. No one wants to hear about me.” Fortunately, Chinese writer Lu Hsun, who provides the title for this workshop, would beg to differ. Along with many other writers—Joan Didion, Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Selzer, M.F.K. Fisher—Lu Hsun explored illness and health in personal, poignant essays. For veterans of this workshop, I have found new doctors, nurses, and patients to read and discuss. Most of our workshop, however, will revolve around your own writing—as patients, as caregivers, as health professionals. Plan to bring work-in-progress (up to 12 double-spaced pages), and to share fresh material produced during the week. Bring a lot of blank pages. Nightly exercises and detailed group comments will fill them up, enough to keep you writing the rest of the year. On Thought: Writing Non-Narrative Essays Students often ask me: “What’s the difference between a personal essay and a personal story?” The distinction becomes wonderfully fuzzy when we include our own narratives of what happened to us, doesn’t it? Well, this week we will explore and write personal essays that stem from other sources, including lists, definitions, and just plain contrariness. As models, we will read brief essays—on noise, on hateful things, for laziness and against joie de vivre, to name a few. We will write against the grain of “what happened to me” to concentrate on “what I think I know.” While a portion of each day will be devoted to a number of habit-breaking exercises, most of our workshop will revolve around your own writing. So plan to bring work-in-progress (up to 12 double-spaced pages), and to share fresh material produced during the week. Bring a lot of blank pages. Nightly homework and detailed group comments will fill them up, enough to keep you writing the rest of the year. School Daze: Stories from Childhood “Childhood is so indelible,” writes Eudora Welty in her amazing essay “The Little Store.” Some stories and images from my childhood never fade with time. Though I do see that child differently now. What about you? Why do you recall some moments so clearly, while whole years appear as lost snapshots? This weekend retreat explores such questions, through writing short personal essays and sharing them. After all, Flannery O’Connor believed that “anyone who survived childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life.” Let’s make good use of that material, while it’s still so indelible. Be sure to bring crayons, diaries, and that smart kid you remember. Biography
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by Instructor Sponsored by the Division of Continuing Education Last updated on February 10, 2009 |
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