In her Creative Nonfiction essay “The Braided Essay as Social Justice,” Nicole Walker argues: “The braided essay isn’t a new form. In fact, I think nearly every essay uses a kind of braiding…perhaps,” she continues, “the braided form is most effective when the political and the personal are trying to explain and understand each other." Among personal essays, braided essays are a form particularly welcoming to the vast array of ways—our obsessions, expertise, and contexts--that each of us uses to try to explain the personal. How distinct do the threads in a braided essay need to be and how regular does the movement between strands need to remain in order to guide readers through the piece? In this class we'll read a selection of braided essays and students will do some generative writing each week.
Optional: Want an extra hour of one-on-one attention?
Amanda will provide written feedback on either part of a manuscript OR to help advise with the submission process for a total of an extra hour of consultation time. Please choose this option in the drop-down menu when purchasing this workshop. This extra time will be scheduled directly with the instructor.______________________
WHERE:
Online via ZOOM (link will be sent the week of first class)
DATES:4 Tuesdays
June 25, July 9, 16, off, 30
TIME:
10am-12pm EST
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LIMITED TO 7 STUDENTS
About the Instructor...
Amanda Parrish Morgan is the author of STROLLER (Bloomsbury 2022), of which The New Yorker wrote “the central strength of the book is not comprehensiveness but the way the stroller, and Morgan’s experience of her own strollering years, become an omnidirectional magnet, pulling disparate material into friendly proximity.”
Some of Amanda’s writing has appeared in The Rumpus, LitHub, Guernica, The Millions, n+1, Electric Literature, Carve, The American Scholar, The Ploughshares Blog, JSTOR Daily, The Washington Post, Real Simple, Women’s Running and ESPNW.