Deborah Taffa is the author of the memoir Whiskey Tender (Harper). A 2018 Writing Fellow at A Public Space, she received her MFA at the University of Iowa and has also received fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, MacDowell, and the NY State Summer Writers Institute. She is a citizen of the Kwatsaan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo, and the director of the MFA creative writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe.
Workshop
Deborah Taffa
Online
Wednesdays, October 2, 2024-October 30, 2024
This class has already happened.
The Essay
The essay—the most flexible, shape-shifting genre—has much to offer writers. This workshop is designed to explore the dynamic possibilities of creative nonfiction. How do we weave public histories into individual stories? What is the impact of emotional truth versus factual truth? How do we distinguish memoir from autobiography? The lyric essay from the traditional essay? And how do we use the form to enrich any type of material? We’ll look at a range of essays—from the historic to the modern—and seek to understand what defines these works in all their permutations. Explore how various writers have navigated its possibilities, and discuss ways to experiment with the typologies to create new directions for our own work.
This is a generative workshop, and each week a piece of writing will be created in conversation with the work we read.
Wednesdays, October 2, 2024-October 30, 2024 (no class October 16)
7:00 p.m.–9:00 p.m. ET
4 sessions
Online on Zoom
Where are the Master Classes and workshops located?
Currently, all Master Classes and workshops are held online on Zoom or Google Meet.
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Is closed captioning available?
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Are scholarships available?
Scholarships are available for all Master Classes. Scholarships are not currently offered for workshops. To apply, please email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with the subject “Master Class Scholarship Application” and include 1) a short statement outlining your interest in this class, and how a scholarship would benefit you as a writer or a reader; and 2) a short bio. Scholarships are awarded on a rolling basis.
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Cancellation Policy
If you need to cancel your enrollment in an Academy class, please let us know as soon as possible. We can only offer full refunds if you cancel two weeks prior to the start of class. After that, before the start date of class, we can offer a 50% refund. We cannot refund day-of cancellations, and we cannot refund or partially refund tuition once the class has begun.