Participants will learn to engage in creative exploration of a local past of their choice; they will read widely in the field of the literary essay, contrasting lyrical tellings of local histories written by Joni Tevis, William Least Heat-Moon, Sarah de Leeuw, Sonya Bilocerkowycz, and José Orduña; and they will practice leveraging literary precision and intent in writing about their own chosen facets of a local or community history. As a foundation, participants will experiment with an array of research methods designed to bring minute clues from the past into surprising focus. Participants will then explore their findings’ literary dimensions with guided writing prompts and collaborative workshopping sessions.
Corinna Cook
Piper Writers Studio Instructor 2021
About Corinna Cook
Corinna Cook (she/her) is the author of LEAVETAKINGS, a lyric essay collection (University of Alaska Press 2020). She is a former Fulbright Fellow, an Alaska Literary Award recipient, a Rasmuson Foundation awardee, and her PhD is in English and Creative Writing from the University of Missouri. Corinna’s essays appear in Flyway, Alaska Quarterly Review, Alaska Magazine, and elsewhere; her journalism appears in Yukon North of Ordinary; and her critical articles appear in Assay and New Writing. Corinna’s current book project looks at Alaska-Yukon artwork, goes out on the land, and searches for ways to live with colonial history.
Find Classes with Corinna Cook
Date: Wednesdays, February 24, 2021 - March 10, 2021, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Phoenix MST
Type: Craft Class, Workshop
Genre: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, Poetry, Research
Type: Craft Class, Workshop
Genre: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, Poetry, Research
Date: Mondays, November 29, 2021 - December 20, 2021, 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Phoenix MST
Type: Craft Class
Genre: Creative Nonfiction, Essays, Journalism, Memoir, Research
Type: Craft Class
Genre: Creative Nonfiction, Essays, Journalism, Memoir, Research
How can poetics serve our most socially urgent writing? Writing about race [for example] is a polemic,” writes Cathy Park Hong, “but also a lyric, in that our inner consciousness is knotted with contradictions.” To investigate this convergence, this course explores the creative nonfiction resistance essay. We will read contemporary works by Aisha Sabatini Sloan, José Orduña, Sarah de Leeuw, and Lina María Ferreira Cabeza-Vanegas—and, in honor the essay’s genre-defying roots, we will also read hybrid/fluid/genre-contested works by writers such as Tommy Pico and Claudia Rankine.