Creative Nonfiction is a ten part course which you can work through at your own pace. You can use the exercises and other resources freely but if you want me to read, assess and feedback on your work you will need to formally enrol on the course. Email me at creativewriting@tiscali.co.uk and I'll send you the full details.
Creative nonfiction employs the elements of fiction writing - scene, dialogue, character, story, imagery, plot, metaphor, and other figurative language - to express personal experiences and social, ethical, and political ideas (those big themes that make others want to read your work). Frequently those ideas and issues will be articulated from a very personal point of view; read through a real life. The distinction between fiction and nonfiction is always a bit of a problem. As John Burnside says in a preamble to his autobiography, A Lie About my Father (2006)...
This book is best treated as a work of fiction. If he were here to discuss it, my father would agree, I'm sure, that it's as true to say that I never had a father as it is to say that he never had a son.
In any event I hope that the course will help you develop the skills which will enable you to write from your own unique position and experience.
While creative nonfiction is a recent introduction to the field of creative writing it is quite arguably the fundamental form. What we now understand as creative nonfiction has been around since at least the eighteenth century but it also entails a very contemporary understanding of the craft. Here's Hunter S Thompson's (very personal) report on a basketball game and here's William Cobbett'sAdvice to Young Men and (incidentally) to Young Womenof 1829. As a key part of the course, along with your own writing, you will read from the many sub-genres of creative nonfiction including personal essays, memoirs, travelogues, political arguments, and cultural critiques.
Good luck with your writing.
Jim Hall
