Heather Harpham

Over the course of the semester, we will devote ourselves to reading memoirs in their entirety and studying their narrative architecture. We will seek out each memoirist’s sui generis gifts—from mesmerizing voice, to propulsive structure, to characters so alive that they stride off the page and loiter in our imagination. We will also think with care about what “memoir” encompasses—a memoir frames a specific time period or dramatic event or arc of psychic evolution within the memoirist’s life. Knowing where to place the frame, having the courage and insight to cut the extraneous and preserve the essential, is the core task of the memoir writer. We will learn from an array of contemporary memoirists’ approaches to storytelling and story framing. These will likely include Salman Rushdie’s Knife, Carvell Wallace’s Another Word for Love, Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water, Jeanette Winterson’s Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Margo Jefferson’s Negroland, and Gabriel Byrne’s Walking with Ghosts. This will be a fast-moving and demanding course in both reading load (ten memoirs in total) and in work expectations. Though a craft course, we will have a scaled-down conference schedule in which each student will begin to outline, or blueprint, their memoir. In the second semester, we will write through these blueprints toward a complete first draft of each student’s memoir. Though this course is designed as the first half of a yearlong progression in drafting a memoir manuscript, it may be taken as a semester course.  

Designed for writers working on a memoir manuscript, each student will have the opportunity to blueprint their project as a whole in conference meetings, as well as to workshop sections of their material in class. Ideally, workshop conversations will be gently informed by the inquiry and discovery of the first semester, including: recognizing and amplifying the idiosyncratic charms of the narrator’s voice, reimagining approaches to time and dramatic structure, locating and leaning into the heat/drama of individual scenes, writing characters alive enough to wander into readers’ dreams, and identifying the primary engines of momentum/tension/propulsion. We will also continue to investigate what “memoir” encompasses. Knowing where to place the frame—having the courage and insight to cut the extraneous and preserve the essential—is the memoir writer’s first, most crucial task. Typically, a memoir frames a specific time period or dramatic event or arc of psychic evolution within the memoirist’s life. And atypically? We will think together about how far the form can be bent without breaking. Ideally, by semester’s end, every writer will have a clear frame around the story that they are telling and will be actively working toward a full first draft. Though this class is designed as the second half of a yearlong progression in drafting a memoir manuscript, it is also open to new writers. The instructor is happy to meet in advance with anyone wondering whether the class can serve their work in progress.

An active workshop (we’ll write together every session) designed to grow the writer’s capacity to animate inner and outer worlds with equal power. This dual-perspective dance requires, in turn, both nuance and bravado. How can we draw readers’ attention to what we most want them to see externally, without breaking faith with the inner world? Conversely, can phenomena as subtle and “intangible” as consciousness leap across the page with such force that a reader feels them physically? We will think collectively about how (and when and if) to tunnel in or zoom out, psychically and environmentally. The aim is for each writer to find freedom in toggling between inner/outer orientations.

We’ll also read writers who refuse to toggle, or who toggle minimally, and still make it work. Examples may include Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking; Souad Mekhennet’s I Was Told to Come Alone; Elizabeth Alexander’s The Light of the World; Maya Angelou’s Singin’ and Swingin’ and Getting’ Merry Like Christmas; Alexandra Fuller’s Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: and selections from Philp Pullman’s Daemon Voices.

Here the body and the landscape are understood to be complimentary concepts…each in a constant process of ‘becoming’ through the other.” —Hannah Macpherson

In this cross-genre craft class, we will be guided by writers who apprehend, appreciate, and articulate the mysteries of the body (cells) and of nature (stars) with special power. We’ll proceed from the premise that fluency in writing about the body and the natural world is a gift that transcends genre to immensely nourish any writer’s work. We’ll learn from writers who transmit ineffable physical states, via the page, directly to their reader’s body and from those who render such fine-grain portraits of our living landscape that we see the familiar anew. Active, embodied writing exercises, as well as focused craft assignments, will invite us to do the same. For inspiration, we may make (quick) forays into other creative disciplines that translate from somatic experience to the environmental idiom, such as photography, theatre, and dance (e.g., Edward Weston, David Cale, Bill T. Jones). Writers we’ll read may include: Kiese Laymon, Annie Dillard, Robin Wall Kimmerer, John Berger, Jimmy Chen, Lorna Marshall, Nanao Sakaki, Tracy K. Smith, Michael Ondaatje, and Kaveh Akbar.

In this multigenre craft course—spanning poetry, prose, and graphic memoir—we will identify, analyze, and emulate the grace and power of folding humor and joy into the narrative line. As effortless as humor and joy may appear on the page, these are—like any conscious act of craft—deliberate gestures that the writer has chosen to leaven or enrich their work. In considering joy, we will look at who typically has had or has laid claim to the “right” to joy. In other words, what does it mean for a writer who is experiencing active oppression to embrace and articulate the sources of joy in their life? Simultaneously, we’ll seek to upend the assumption of sameness at the heart of Tolstoy’s famous line, “All happy families are alike…,” by considering work by writers who sing their unique happiness on the page and forge kinship with the reader by sharing quotidian joys. In considering humor, we will focus on how—even (maybe especially) for writers who have been otherwise locked out of the experience of belonging fully within their culture—the use of humor has been a disarming tool, a survival mechanism, and a pathway toward transcendence. As John Waters said in a recent interview, “You can only change peoples’ minds if you make them laugh.” Writing that we’ll read may include, but is not limited, to: Bettyville, George Hodgman; Born a Crime, Trevor Noah; Fun House, Alison Bechdel; “Joy,” Zadie Smith; Picnic, Lightning, Billy Collins; The Book of Delights, Ross Gay; Baby, I Don’t Care, Chelsey Minnis; The Gilded Six-Bits, Zora Neale Hurston; and The Trayvon Generation, Elizabeth Alexander.

In this creative nonfiction workshop, humor and joy will be the leavening agents that we invite one another to integrate into material of any weight or gravity. Humor—whether used as the driving force of a satirical piece or as a light dusting of levity within a piece that’s hugely serious—affords us, as writers, a way to disarm and charm readers—to share a breath with them across time. Likewise, finding artful ways to animate joy on the page is a gift that only rare writers have fully explored; it can feel indulgent or unnecessary. But in an era that is rippling with worry, uncertainty, and despair, joy in our writing matters more than ever; it’s a power source to propel us forward—not with blind optimism but, rather, with deep appreciation for what’s most precious, most worth preserving and transmitting. The grace and power made possible by folding humor and joy into virtually any narrative line are available to any of us but require eager attention and careful architecture. As effortless as humor and joy may appear on the page—like any conscious act of craft—these are deliberate gestures that the writer has chosen to enrich their work. Our aim will be to harness the special momentum that joy and humor offer to creative nonfiction narratives and to amplify both within our own writing. Writers whose work may serve as a guide include, among others, Elizabeth Alexander, Chris Struck, George Saunders, John Berger, Ross Gay, Virginia Woolf, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Caitlin Moran, and ZZ Packer.

This yearlong class will awaken and engage the fundamental instrument of the performer: the human body. In the first semester, we'll rely on Action Theater as our primary tool. Action Theater --by combining a rigorous, systematic physical technique with a belief in the inherent intelligence and artistry of the imagination --seeks to quiet the “chatter” of the inner critic and bring heightened awareness to pure sensation. It offers students the essential skill set of physical theater including: vivid somatic articulation; emotional agility and flexibility; ready access to imaginative impulses; and sensitive response to ensemble partners. The goal is to train performers who can translate the vitality, sensitivity and daring instincts of great improvisers into any theatrical work they undertake. In our second semester, we'll integrate several other physical methods, possibly including: Viewpoints, Chekhov Technique, Butoh and Richard Schechner's rasaboxes. As a culminating project, all students will create a movement-based piece that reflects their growth. Some reading required, as well as ongoing writing in a movement journal.