Writing in English: Creative Non-Fiction in English

This is a course for students from any disciplinary background who are interested in exploring what it means to read and write creative nonfiction in the contemporary moment. We will be looking at several aspects and sub-genres of creative nonfiction – including the personal essay, memoir, biography and autobiography and criticism – in order to explore ways to approach writing about topics such as grief, illness, literature, art, politics, music, nature and ecology, and more.

We will be reading both longer and shorter texts by masters of the craft, alongside essays by celebrated writers. In previous years, the syllabus has included writing by Hilton Als, Joan Didion, Michelle Zauner, Lauren Elkin, David Foster Wallace, Lauren Oyler, Rebecca Solnit, Amitav Ghosh and Nina Mingya Powles. However, this course is also about the mechanisms of writing. Taking inspiration from the course texts, we will be developing our own pieces of creative nonfiction, paying close attention to form, the delivery of narrative and the issues both raised by the text and the craft involved in making them readable/true/reliable/controversial. Together, we will consider how to position oneself as a narrator and the question of audience, as well as how we can incorporate literary concepts like character, plot and style into nonfictional prose.

The seminars will include lectures or talks by visiting writers, critical discussion on the assigned texts and writing prompts to explore specific techniques, look at how the writers we read use them, and share work with each other. There will also be an intensive writing workshops, which will delve into specific techniques, topics or ways of approaching creative nonfiction. In the past, these have included trips to cultural institutions like Thorvaldsens Museum and Menneskebiblioteket, as well as solitary nature walks.