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The great French writer Annie Ernaux—this year’s winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature—once said about work, “I started to make a literary being of myself, someone who lives as if her experiences were to be written down someday.” For decades, Ernaux has mined her personal life to illuminate the world, often using her own story to draw the world’s attention to things we often look away from and would rather forget. In this workshop, students will learn the fundamentals of constructing the self on the page by reading short excerpts from writers like Ernaux, James Baldwin, and Melissa Febos. Students will then be given a series of prompts and will develop, and workshop, their own personal essays. We will focus on various forms of the personal essay, from food writing to cultural criticism to current affairs. Students will also be given tips about how to pitch, and publish, their personal essays in outlets like The New York Times, Catapult, Eater, and Literary Hub.

Tuition: $295
Zoom Meetings
Mondays, 2/6, 2/13, 2/20, 2/27 (4 sessions) 6-8 pm EST

Faculty: Zahir Janmohamed is a visiting assistant professor of English at Bowdoin College. He received his MFA in fiction at the University of Michigan where he received awards in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and playwriting. In 2019, the podcast he co-founded about food, race, gender, and class called Racist Sandwich was nominated for a James Beard Award. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Guernica, The Washington Post, The San Francisco Chronicle, Newsweek, and many other publications. Prior to beginning his writing career, he worked at Amnesty International and in the US Congress. 

To register visit cs.meca.edu

Weekly Class

SALT: Personal Essay Writing

Continuing Studies at Maine College of Art & Design

SALT: Personal Essay Writing

Weekly Class

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