Writing the Everyday
Writing the Everyday
Writers are often under the misunderstanding that trauma, major life overhauls, and wild adventures are the only subjects that make for moving nonfiction. But most hours of most of our lives are spent inside smaller, quieter experiences—and those too can be the topic of meaningful essays and even memoir. The trick is becoming the kind of writer who relentlessly pays attention to the “mundane” world, training yourself to see connections where others see nothing at all.
Come prepared to do the work. In this presentation, we will do writing exercises to help you transfer what you notice about your everyday life to the page, and we'll examine others' writing to see how ordinary things can become the building blocks of transcendent personal essays and poems. With discipline and over time, you will find you are never at a loss for what to write about.