Introductions
Hey Everybody-
Welcome to Essay Book Club. Consider this a space for talking about creative nonfiction: what makes it exciting, what has challenged us, and what we want to do with the genre in our own work. In my grandest view of this project, I want you to think of this as its own community, or maybe the equivalent of a grad-school seminar where we're all responsible for coming up with the lesson plan and book list. Really, it's a place to think more critically about the stuff we're working on, and to share that with the larger group.
And in that spirit, for this first post, I'm hoping that those of you participating will comment below and share a bit about yourself. I'm thinking something like a brief bio, maybe a twitter handle and/or website if you have one, what project (if any) you're currently working on, and some writing goal for the next year. I'll start here:
I'm David LeGault, and I write poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, but somehow nonfiction is where most of my time and energy always ends up. I have a book of essays, One Million Maniacs, and I am also a columnist for the website Essay Daily I currently live in Prague, Czech Republic, where I'm teaching English Lit classes at an international high school. I'm at @legaultd on Twitter and at my website for One Million Maniacs, found here. I'm currently working on a couple different projects: first is a book of essays that uses board games as a way of talking about our lives, and the second is a longer, book-length essay that is partially about long-distance running and otherwise about feeling disconnected living overseas. For writing goals, I'm hoping to finish a first draft for at least one (if not both) of these projects in 2020.
Anyway, please share whatever you'd like below. In the next few days I'll be following up with some information on our first reading, as well as some other Google Drive Folders/calendars/behind-the-scenes stuff. Looking forward to reading and writing with y'all this year!
Welcome to Essay Book Club. Consider this a space for talking about creative nonfiction: what makes it exciting, what has challenged us, and what we want to do with the genre in our own work. In my grandest view of this project, I want you to think of this as its own community, or maybe the equivalent of a grad-school seminar where we're all responsible for coming up with the lesson plan and book list. Really, it's a place to think more critically about the stuff we're working on, and to share that with the larger group.
And in that spirit, for this first post, I'm hoping that those of you participating will comment below and share a bit about yourself. I'm thinking something like a brief bio, maybe a twitter handle and/or website if you have one, what project (if any) you're currently working on, and some writing goal for the next year. I'll start here:
I'm David LeGault, and I write poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, but somehow nonfiction is where most of my time and energy always ends up. I have a book of essays, One Million Maniacs, and I am also a columnist for the website Essay Daily I currently live in Prague, Czech Republic, where I'm teaching English Lit classes at an international high school. I'm at @legaultd on Twitter and at my website for One Million Maniacs, found here. I'm currently working on a couple different projects: first is a book of essays that uses board games as a way of talking about our lives, and the second is a longer, book-length essay that is partially about long-distance running and otherwise about feeling disconnected living overseas. For writing goals, I'm hoping to finish a first draft for at least one (if not both) of these projects in 2020.
Anyway, please share whatever you'd like below. In the next few days I'll be following up with some information on our first reading, as well as some other Google Drive Folders/calendars/behind-the-scenes stuff. Looking forward to reading and writing with y'all this year!
Thank you David for the initiative for this wonderful idea! Here's to a wonderful experience.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, hi all - my name is Erel, I'm a 27 year-old currently living in CT and applying to CNF MFAs. I don't have a lot of experience writing in English, so right now I'm working on building a portfolio. I have two ideas for essays lined up but I need to get a move on actually writing them..
I'm hoping that this group can be a space that will help me be accountable towards my writing goals. I'd love to receive feedback eventually and would be excited to workshop other's pieces in the meantime. I I'm also looking forward to broadening my horizons and reading some excellent texts.
You can find me on twitter at @erelm3 but I'm not super-active; the best way to reach me is probably by email.
Looking forward!
Greetings, all. And thank you to David for getting this up and running.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Dan. I live just outside Syracuse, NY. I've been writing nonfiction for quite a while--ever since my first NF workshop in grad school in 1986. Over the years, I've published essays in places like River Teeth, Fourth Genre, The North American Review, and other lit journals. I've done two memoirs--one about my first marriage, and another about parenting. Right now I'm working on a book that is a combo of journalism, history, and memoir. It's about prosthetic eyes--a fascinating little world that not many people know much about, and which no one has really written anything extensive about, as far as I can tell. I'm hoping to have a full draft by the end of the summer. Fingers crossed.
Otherwise, I teach at Le Moyne College, here in Syracuse--mostly journalism, creative nonfiction of various sorts, and literature. My favorite class right now is one completely devoted to Joan Didion.
I've had a website off and on, but it's off right now--after I shut down all social media and related stuff about a year ago, just to take a break. A couple months ago I decided to ease back into Twitter. So I'm there: @rochedm.
Anyway, an international nonfiction reading/writing group with people I haven't met before seems like a healthy use of online energies, and I'm looking forward to taking part.
Cheers!
Dan
From Dorian:
ReplyDeleteHi everyone,
I'm Dorian, a writer and teacher based in Tucson, Arizona. I earned my MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Arizona, where in the spring I'm teaching a workshop called "Writing Well: Essay as Self-Help." At the moment I'm at work on a couple of essay collections: one revolving around the recent death of my father, and the other a kind of book of wisdom drawn from some of our great canonical (and some lesser-known) thinkers. I'm a volunteer mentor with Boys to Men Tucson, and a student of Desert Rain Zen. For 2020 I hope to publish at least one essay from each of these projects. Sometimes I talk to writers at Essay Daily.
Hey hey hey, all! I'm belated. I'm Aaron. I started Hobart, I'm a Lecturer at University of Michigan, I got my MFA in Fiction but have spent the last couple years mostly writing nonfiction.
ReplyDelete