Writing Workshops

Narrative Truth: How Fiction Can Serve Your Nonfiction with Courtney Zoffness

$150

2 Sessions

Out of stock

Saturday & Sunday 12:00 pm EDT - 3:00 pm EDT September 10 to September 11, 2022

Online via Zoom

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Meeting Dates:
Saturday & Sunday, 9/10 & 9/11
12–3pm ET, 2 Sessions via Zoom

How can writers make a personal story immersive? Propulsive? Deeply felt? This bootcamp will consider craft techniques essential to fiction writing—salient details, dramatic tension, characterization, setting—and show how they can strengthen and enrich narrative nonfiction.

Capacity: 20

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Led by

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    Courtney Zoffness

    Courtney Zoffness

    Courtney Zoffness is the author of Spilt Milk, named a best debut of 2021 by BookPage and Refinery29, and a “most anticipated” or “must-read” by Publishers Weekly, Good Morning America, LitHub, the Millions, and others. Also a fiction writer, Zoffness won the Sunday Times Short Story Award, the most valuable international prize for short fiction, amid entries from 38 countries. She joined a list of winners that includes Anthony Doerr and Junot Díaz. Other honors include an Emerging Writer Fellowship from The Center for Fiction, the Arts & Letters Creative Nonfiction Prize, and two residency fellowships from MacDowell. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Paris Review, Guernica, and other venues. Currently she directs the creative writing program at Drew University and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

By Courtney Zoffness

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    Spilt Milk

    By Courtney Zoffness

    Published by McSweeney's Publishing

    PURCHASE

    What role does a mother play in raising thoughtful, generous children? In her literary debut, internationally award-winning writer Courtney Zoffness considers what we inherit from generations past—biologically, culturally, spiritually—and what we pass on to our children.

    Spilt Milk is an intimate, bracing, and beautiful exploration of vulnerability and culpability. Zoffness relives her childhood anxiety disorder as she witnesses it manifest in her firstborn; endures brazen sexual advances by a student in her class; grapples with the implications of her young son’s cop obsession; and challenges her Jewish faith. Where is the line between privacy and secrecy? How do the stories we tell inform who we become? These powerful, dynamic essays herald a vital new voice.

About this series

Writing Workshops

We strive to make our classes the most inviting and rewarding available, offering an intimate environment to study with award-winning, world-class writers. Each class is specially designed by the instructor, so whether you’re a fledgling writer or an MFA graduate polishing your novel, you’ll find a perfect fit here.

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