The Parent-Child Problem: Writing
Truthfully about Family
“We spend most of our adulthoods
trying to grasp the meaning of our parents’ lives,” says the essayist Phillip
Lopate. But writing truthfully about our parents, not to mention our children,
may be the most challenging writing there is. Still, many of us feel the need
to document the knowledge earned in the cauldron of family life. This workshop
will explore ways to approach nonfiction writing about family so that it is
accurate, sensitive, and meaningful to a larger audience. No experience, or
work completed in advance, is necessary.
Here are links to some of the recommended readings for this week's workshop.
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden
“This Be the Verse” by Philip Larkin
“The Essay: An Exercise in Doubt” by Philip Lopate
“How Memoirists Mold the Truth” by Andre Aciman
“The Body Under the Rug” by Alexander Stille ( http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/the-body-under-the-rug/
“The
Darkness of an Irish Morning” by John Patrick Shanley
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/opinion/the-darkness-of-an-irish-morning.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130309&_r=1&&pagewanted=print"Invisible Men" by Helen Elaine Lee
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/16/books/review/creative-writing-in-a-massachusetts-prison.html?pagewanted=all
