C R E A T I V E W R I T I N G Writing the Memoir: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants I n this course, we will practice the art and craft of writing memoir: works of prose inspired by the memory of personal experiences and history. Each week, we will match two or three contemporary examples of the genre with one of the groundbreaking historical precedents that shaped the memoir as we read and write it today. In doing so, we will practice many different ways to approach writing our own memoir essays, chap- ters, and books. The course will also address how we select and write about events from our personal lives. We will read works of memoir by Leslie Jamison, Joan Didion, John Updike, Eavan Boland, and others. About half of our class time will be devoted to the discussion of student work. Students will write in class each week to develop stand-alone short memoir pieces related to the craft concepts we will study. Students will also work incrementally toward a quarter-length memoir project. All students will have the opportunity to present for workshop two shorter writing sketches and one longer draft of a memoir chapter or essay. joh n W. eva nS Nancy Draper Lecturer of Creative Nonfiction and Former Stegner Fellow, Stanford John W. Evans is the author of four books. His latest, The Fight Journal, received the Rattle Prize and is forthcoming in 2023. Should I Still Wish: A Memoir was selected for the “American Lives” series. Young Widower: A Memoir received the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize and a Foreword INDIES award. The Consolations: Poems was named the 2015 Peace Corps Writers Best Poetry Book. His work has appeared in Slate, The Missouri Review, Boston Review, Zyzzyva, Poets & Writers, and The Best American Essays. CNF 09 Mondays, 6:30 – 9:20 pm (PT) 10 weeks, June 26 – August 28 3 units, $710 Limit: 22 Refund Deadline: June 28 Course Format: Live Online The Short Story for Absolute Beginners B ack in 1842, Edgar Allan Poe said this of the short story: “The unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance, [and] cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be completed at one sitting.” In other words, less is more. The short story attains its dramatic heft mainly by being short, and the best stories derive their emotive power over the reader via elision, compression, and concision—the three essential methodologies for all practitioners of the form. As you work through a series of assignments, you’ll conceive, build, and develop a story. We’ll talk about your work and about exemplary works from contem- porary masters. We’ll talk about first sentences, first paragraphs, world-building, and foreshadowing; about John Gardner’s “profluence,” James Joyce’s “epiphany,” and Jerome Stern’s “shapes of fiction”; about conflict, crisis, tension, and closure. This introductory course presumes no expertise in the short story form. Discussion of your assignments will be supportive and respectful, exploratory and generative, rather than prescriptive. Your primary goal is not to finish a story per se but rather to learn and understand the fundamental elements of all short stories, honing and enriching your reading and writing practice into the future. da n i e l orozCo Associate Professor, Emeritus, Creative Writing Program, University of Idaho; Former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer, Stanford Daniel Orozco is the author of Orientation and Other Stories. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Mystery Stories, The Best American Essays, and Pushcart Prize anthol- ogies. He has received an NEA fellowship and the Whiting Award. FICT 78 Tuesdays, 6:30 – 9:20 pm (PT) 8 weeks, July 11 – August 29 2 units, $620 Limit: 24 Refund Deadline: July 13 Course Format: Live Online 54 S T A N F O R D C O N T I N U I N G S T U D I E S