Research as Writerly Practice–and as a Portal to the Page Led By Lauren Markham
Saturday, September 10th, 2022 | 1 PM ET - 4 PM ET
Tuition | $50.00
Capacity: 20 Storytellers
The myth of artistic genius often suggests that inspiration is mainlined from the heavens, and that one's own imagination is the only creative source there is. And yet whether we're writing poetry or prose, it's often an inquiry into the world around and outside of us that serves as the most potent inspiration, and that lends itself to more complex, powerful work on the page. How can research--be it archival research, in-person reporting, oral history interviews, or delving into primary sources of our own lives and family--be a generative practice, serving as a portal to the written word? In this cross-genre craft class, we'll look at examples of luminous poetry and prose that emerges from deep and curious research, to figure out how plain facts can be rendered richly and beautifully; we will also consider how to incorporate rich factual inquiry into our own creative projects. Participants will come away from the class with a deepened appreciation for the research process and practice, a better sense of how to turn fact into poetry or prose, and with a research plan for a current or future creative project.
ABOUT THE FACULTY: Lauren Markham is a fiction writer, essayist and journalist based in California whose work has appeared in outlets such as Guernica, Harper's, Orion, Freeman's, Lithub, Best American Travel Writing, The New Republic, Narrative, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times and VQR, where she is a contributing editor. Lauren is the author of The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life, which was awarded the Northern California Book Award, The California Book Award Silver Medal, and the Ridenhour Prize. She teaches in the MFA programs at Ashland University and the University of San Francisco.
Partial and full scholarships are available. Email scholarship inquiries to Info@RootsWoundsWords.org. Explicitly state the scholarship (partial or full) you’re interested in.
Closed Captioning available. Like all RWW offerings, this space is for Black, Indigenous, Latinx/e, Asian, and other Storytellers of Color only. BIPOC Storytellers are centered here, exclusively.