Writing Your Life, Writing Your Place: A Generative Nonfiction Workshop with Deb Marquart

This is a 6-meeting virtual class using the Zoom platform. 

Mondays, Sept 8, 15, 22, 29, Oct 6, 13, 7-8:30 pm Central time.

About this class: Are you the one in the family who keeps track of stories or are you the one who sits in the corner and listens to everyone talking? Does your life sometimes seem like a reality TV show or do you walk through calm, peaceful days of beautiful serenity? Either way, you have a story to tell.

In this introductory nonfiction workshop, we will look at short examples from published authors who have successfully put their stories down on paper, then we’ll try our own hands—through a series of creative writing prompts—to help you put down some of your own stories on paper. In this class, we will discuss the basic principles of craft (i.e., what makes good, vivid writing), and we will write short creative writing pieces based on inspiring prompts.  Once you’ve written your starting drafts, you will share your writing with the members of the class in a roundtable or small group workshop, and you’ll get feedback for improving your work.

Instructor bio: Debra Marquart is the author of eight books of prose and poetry, including an environmental memoir of place, The Horizontal World: Growing Up Wild in the Middle of Nowhere and Gratitude with Dogs Under Stars: New & Collected Poems. She teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University and the Stonecoast Low-Residency MFA Program at University of Southern Maine, and she serves as the Senior Editor of Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment. A singer/songwriter, Marquart performs with her jazz-poetry, rhythm & blues project, The Bone People. For more information: debramarquart.com.