Writers Workshop: 6-Week Narrative Non-Fiction

Name of class: Narrative Non-Fiction

Time: 7 p.m. Mondays, Sept. 11 - Oct. 16 via Zoom

Description: We all know how to tell a story, yet when it comes to writing one, we often become our own worst enemy. We tell readers what to think and feel. We throw in extraneous details because we have them. We telegraph the ending. Memorable stories do not happen in the inverted pyramid of journalism school; they unfold more like the ghost tales we told as kids. In this six-week course, we’ll learn how to recapture that natural sense of storytelling. We’ll study examples, do some writing, critique each other’s work. In fact, more of the class will be a roundtable workshop as opposed to a lecture.

Each week we’ll focus on a different aspect of nonfiction writing: scene and atmosphere, creating memorable characters, conflict and complication, theme and meaning, voice and style. We’ll also explore one of the hottest topics in modern storytelling: the line between fact and fiction, discussing whether a writer can ever take poetic liberties.

This course should be useful for anyone looking to write a book, a memoir, essays, magazine articles, journalism small or large, or better blog posts. All levels of writers are welcome.

Instructor: Jim Auchmutey is the author of two books that were named Books All Georgians Should Read by the Georgia Center for the Book: The Class of '65: A Student, a Divided Town, and the Long Road to Forgiveness and Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America. They both begin with scenes. He wrote for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for almost 30 years and was twice named the Cox Newspaper chain's writer of the year.

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