Creative Nonfiction

Professor: Dr. Tony Morris
Class: WRIT 4130 – Creative Nonfiction
Office: Gamble 204
Phone: 912-344-3123
Email: tmorris@georgiasouthern.edu

“I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death, where you’re going no matter how you live, cannot you part.” 

—Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

This course will explore the creative nonfiction genre in its many variations as we critically read the assigned essays to understand the form and the craft of the genre. We will also read to critique the writing of our peers to find ways to improve our writing. And as students of literary nonfiction, we will compose a memoir/personal essay, a nature/ecology essay, and a literary journalism essay. Memory, observation, self-discovery, and research—these are the main tools of writing that will help us to investigate various traditional and non-traditional essay forms about people, places, and things. Through these writing exercises, we might find that we are better able to locate our own perspectives on the richness of our lived experiences.

“We also see creative nonfiction as the subject that binds together the three disparate strands in most English departments: literature, creative writing, and composition.”

—The Fourth Genre

Course Goals

  • To think critically about the creative nonfiction genre
  • To develop basic elements and writing skills related to creative nonfiction
  • To develop a working understanding of the creative nonfiction genre
  • To develop a working portfolio of polished work for initial submission for publication

Course Outcomes

  • To sharpen creative writing skills in creative nonfiction
  • To enhance awareness of the importance of purpose, audience, and tone in writing
  • To become familiar with the various levels of print and online professional resources
  • To refine editing/writing skills through varied sentence construction and appropriate word choice
  • To gain self-confidence in the creative writing mode
  • To develop an understanding of the value of the computer as an aid in composing, particularly the use of word processor, spell check and electronic thesaurus
  • To introduce basic research and documentation skills

I look forward to seeing you all in workshop. Let’s have fun!

…A person who is headstrong enough to open their eyes and their heart to the full depth and weight of the world is inviting in everything out there – both evil and good, both dark and light, and the sheer bravery of that openness enables them to gain profound insight into the human condition. It also fucks them up. It may even make them more prone to stick their head in an oven than to engage in self-promotional chitchat on Jay Leno. —Patricia Pearson