The Practice of the Personal Essay with Rosie Schaap
Info
Date: October 8, 2024
Time: 5.30 pm - 7.30 pm
Duration: 6 weeks
Level: Beginner | Emerging |
Cost: €165 (€150)
This course will take place online on Tuesdays for 6 weeks.
Course Summary
‘The essayist,’ Phillip Lopate writes, ‘attempts to surround a something—a subject, a mood, a problematic irritation—by coming at it from all angles, wheeling and diving like a hawk, each seemingly digressive spiral actually taking us closer to the heart of the matter.’
The personal essay is an inherently pliant, even experimental form; informed and animated by the writer’s unique life experience and voice, it presents an unusual opportunity to luxuriate in thought, to engage deeply with a something that troubles you, excites you, or otherwise keeps you awake at night.
Course Outline
In this six-week course, participants will closely read essays by Jo Ann Beard, Emily Bernard, Angela Bourke and others as we survey the personal essay in many forms, including the braided essay, the collage essay, and the lyric essay. Workshop discussions of participants’ writing will be at the core of our two-hour sessions. We will consider the decisions essayists must make (what to reveal, and what to withhold? what to compress, and what to expand?) and our dual obligation to telling the truth and writing engaging prose.
Course Outcomes
Participants will write and revise one substantial personal essay (up to 2500 words) and will compose several shorter works generated by regular writing prompts. They will hone essential narrative skills (such as scene-building and character development), and deepen their acquaintance with the history, discourse, and range of the personal essay form.
Rosie Schaap is the author of three books: The Slow Road North: How I Found Peace in an Improbable Country, Becoming a Sommelier, and Drinking with Men: A Memoir. She was a columnist for The New York Times Magazine, and her essays appear in anthologies including Eat Joy: Stories and Comfort Food from 31 Celebrated Writers and Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York. A native New Yorker, Schaap now lives on the Antrim Coast.
Booked out? To be added to the waiting list for this course, please email info@irishwriterscentre.ie.
