Life Writing and Writing Life Short Course

On the Life Writing and Writing Life Short Course, students are introduced to the tools needed to start on or continue their path towards writing narrative non-fiction. The course is taught by an industry expert with practical exercises. Students explore creative non-fiction, using techniques more associated with fiction such as dialogue, description and characterisation to engage with readers. The course explores various writers like Joan Didion, Maggie Nelson, Annie Dillard, Denis Johnson, Rebecca Solnit, Helen McDonald, Geoff Dyer and Lester Bangs who have all used their lives in their writing and their writing in their lives. Students practise writing different genres of narrative non-fiction, such as personal essays and memoirs, profiles and interviews, nature and travel writing, idea-based essays, literary journalism, blogging and any other forms of prose that use real-life as its springboard. The only necessity is that all pieces of writing for this class must contain some element of truth. By the end of the course students will have: • An understanding of the basic techniques of ‘good’ writing • Become comfortable with reading aloud • Become better able to take and to give criticism • Learnt to think about structure • Taken their experiences and things they have observed to use as material for pieces of writing • Developed new skills • Experienced life on campus • Had the chance to network and share ideas with students from across the globe • Received feedback and critique on assignments