Creative Nonfiction with Emily Bernard
Writing the Self Through Others: the Ethics of First-Person Narrative
What do your friends and family think about your writing? Is it possible to write about people you care about without offending or hurting them? How can I tell the stories I need to tell without sacrificing my relationships? In my experience, these questions represent the most common concerns of writers at the beginning of the personal essay journey. In this workshop, we will confront these questions head on, discussing various approaches employed by nonfiction writers. Ultimately, though, this workshop is designed so that participants have a chance to compose their own positions on these questions. As writers of first-person narrative, we must be certain of our project, and that includes its ethical dimensions. Short readings, prompts, and exercises will enable us to explore fully the moral heart of the work that we do. Above all, this workshop is a “judgment free zone” where openness, honesty, and a delight in creative wildness are the only requirements.
Each Day
Each session will begin with a writing prompt which you will be given a limited amount of time to explore on paper (or via your computer). When we reconvene, you will share from your work. After a short break, we will turn to the work of individual participants. We will end each session by outlining expectations for the next session. If time permits, we will make space for free-ranging discussions about the contemporary publishing landscape.
Preparation
Please submit a nonfiction manuscript (either a complete personal essay or an appropriate, coherent portion of a longer work) between 3000-4500 words in length by June 20.
Supplies
Writing instruments of your choice, and either paper (a notebook) or a laptop, or both.
Who is this class for?
If you long to tell the story of your life (or simply a story *from* your life) but are worried about how it might impact loved ones, this is a class for you. Where is the line between self and other? This a question that each one of us must answer for ourselves. I cannot promise simple resolutions, but I can offer a space where we can discuss this question and others like it in an atmosphere of mutual respect, rigorous camaraderie, and honest self-reflection.
About the Instructor
Emily Bernard is the author of Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine, which was named one of the best books of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews and National Public Radio. Black is the Body won the 2020 Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for autobiographical prose. Emily’s previous books include: Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; and Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendship, which was chosen by the New York Public Library as a Book for the Teen Age; and, with Deborah Willis, Michelle Obama: The First Lady in Photographs, which received a 2010 NAACP Image Award. Her work has appeared in: Harper’s, TLS, The New Republic, The New Yorker, O the Oprah Magazine, Image, Best American Essays, Best African American Essays, and Best of Creative Nonfiction. She has received fellowships from the Alphonse A. Fletcher Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, MacDowell, the Vermont Arts Council, Yale University, and the W. E. B. DuBois Institute at Harvard University. A 2024-2025 fellow at the Leon Levy Center for Biography, Emily is the 2024-2025 Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the Shapiro Center for Creative Writing and Criticism at Wesleyan University.