Nonfiction

An introduction to archival research through narrative writing and experimentation. Learn how to work with and historical resources, interpret gaps, and reconstruct your own story as a public history tool. The workshop will include a presentation of examples from the instructor's current research process, featuring archival imagery, documents and story iterations. Participants will engage in exercises to think and write through their own narrative projects, whether meant for personal memoir or public scholarship. Designed for emerging scholars, writers, and community members interested in recovering underrepresented histories.

In this two-part workshop series, you'll first explore how to build a restorative, sustainable writing practice rooted in your values, interests, and natural creative rhythms. Then on day two, you'll learn how to thoughtfully shape your writing into a creative offering, identifying the messages you want to share, the audience you hope to reach, and the platforms or projects that best align with your goals. Whether you're beginning your writing journey, returning after time away, or looking for fresh direction, you'll leave with practical tools, greater creative clarity, and a deeper sense of purpose for both your writing practice and your creative life. Please note: If you've previously taken GG's standalone workshop, Writing as a Restorative Practice, the first day of this series covers much of that same material. The second day offers new content focused on shaping your writing into a creative offering and sharing it with intention.

"The histories of families cannot be separated from the histories of nations," writes Susan Griffin at the beginning of a book that sets her family's story into the context of the Second World War. Workshop participants will learn about different nonfiction forms that feature robust, compelling family narratives. Each session will include writing prompts and in-class time to respond to the prompts.By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to identify and use narrative elements that render a story vivid, concerned, and fulfilled.

More and more, popular culture has been fascinated by narratives that depict coming of age from the perspective of the child in the form of memoir, often demonstrating cultural diversity. This workshop will focus stories drawn from participants’ own life experiences that have certain fictional elements and are structured like fiction. During each week of the course, we will write short pieces of memoir, based on the following: certain places and individuals you remember, certain traditions and even collective traumas that predate the first-person narrator, certain positive events as well as troubling events, with the liberty to fictionalize and embellish the autobiographical story. We will develop a foundation for the elements of fiction: plot, character, internal monologue, and dialogue while studying published works in the genre.