Overview of Course

What makes a story worth telling, and what compels others to listen? In this creative nonfiction workshop, we will explore answers to these questions through four primary means: reading creative nonfiction, reflecting on your travels, writing about your experiences, and revising your compositions. Reading creative nonfiction—both model texts and also your peers’ prose—is a foundational step in the process of discovering what makes factual stories effective and engaging. You will learn how some exemplary writers have narrativized their lived experiences through travel writing, episodic essays, and memoir. Then, in light of your Semester at Sea journey, you will try your hand at these genres, drawing on literary elements such as setting, characterization, description, dialogue, conflict, and resolution to capture your own lived experiences in vivid detail. Reviewing your peers’ drafts and workshopping your works-in-progress will provide ample opportunity for thoughtful consideration of structure, voice, and style as well as preparation for an in-class presentation of one of your revised pieces. By semester’s end, you will have produced a travel narrative, an episodic essay, and a short memoir reflective of your intercontinental voyage.