Essay as Activism
Utilizing Craft to Dive Deep into Themes and Discourse
I still remember all those years ago when I decided to start taking writing classes at Grub Street in Boston. I had been a writer for ages - I wrote Goosebump style short stories in junior high and while in college helped found The Ram’s Tale as one of the fiction/nonfiction editors (now called The FCC Review). But I left writing behind for a bit when I began working in the publishing industry. Ironic, since I had decided to go into publishing, as it felt like a respectable money-earning profession vs being a writer.
But about eight years in, I started tinkering again, first with a Tumbler account and eventually a food blog. And then I signed up for my first creative nonfiction writing class at Grub Street. I was so excited to be in a classroom again, close-reading all kinds of essays, picking apart excerpts and analyzing them. But we didn’t analyze them in the same academic way and we didn’t ask “what” an author was doing or “why” in that abstract kind of way that I recalled had in English Lit classes that I took in undergrad. Instead we scanned each essay closely, examining a single sentence or a a paragraph, or the title and noted the craft elements (or rhetorical devices) that made those things stand out. Elements such as dialogue (was it included or not, were there speech tags, or was it buried into the paragraph and just in italics), or details (how were the senses being evoked and a world built through the description of a piece of fabric, or the smell of a favorite dish being cooked), or braiding (where two different stories were woven together to create a more complex, layered meaning). From those elements we could make educated arguments on what the theme was or what the author was trying to convey.
I drank it all up; it had been too long. And I tried on different voices and experimented with different styles. I was so hooked that within a year or two of taking classes I had applied to grad school to do an MFA in Creative Writing.
Throughout that and my doctorate in Creative Writing and the countless courses I’ve taught, I still relish in basking in all the craft elements and love watching students unpack pieces. I love seeing the light bulb go off when they understand how by an author adding that list into the essay or putting two disparate facts side by side creates they have communicated often deep, complex, and difficult ideas and themes through the pages to the reader.
If you love this stuff too, if you’re new or new-ish to writing creative nonfiction and also want to bask in all things craft elements, join me in my online Craft Talk next Wednesday April 29th 12p PST/3p EST. You can register at: https://writingcraft.com/event/essay-as-activism/
While teaching undergrad writing courses at Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, I created a class called Essay as Activism, where we asked questions of the creative essay and worked to understand how this format works to convey important themes and messages by examining a variety of essay styles and stories, many of which explored difficult, political, and important contemporary issues. I have taken this full length course and shrunk it down to a 1.5 hour webinar, so please come join for a taste of craft!
You can also read more on the blog I wrote for Brevity that gives additional details and a sampling of the type of writing practice we’ll be engaging in!
