Advanced Nonfiction Workshop: Reading and Writing Memory and Landscape

The human animal is shaped by place and memory of place. How can a writer best create what Nabokov called "bright blocks of perception" and evoke the power of formative landscapes? We will move between memoir, narrative non-fiction, and autobiographical fiction, reading Virginia Woolf, Nabokov, Jesmyn Ward, and Mary Oliver. We will contemplate the way memory works with Oliver Sacks and Robin Kimmerer. Students will generate critical and creative work based on their own experiences and adventures, with room for interdisciplinary/multi-genre output. (One intro CRWR course, or by instructor approval) (formerly ENAM 0380) 3 hrs. sem.