(Summer22) Writing Workshop: Writing the Self through Others: The Ethics of First-Person Narrative

Two Day Writing Workshop with Emily Bernard
Writing the Self through Others: The Ethics of First-Person Narrative
Date: Tuesday & Wednesday August 2 & 3
Time: 4:00-5:30PM each day
Location: Art Barn Library
​Fee: $150

What do your friends and family think about your writing? Is it possible to write about people you care about without offending or hurting them? How can I tell the stories I need to tell without sacrificing my relationships? In my experience, these questions represent the most common concerns of writers at the beginning of the personal essay journey. In this workshop, we will confront these questions head on, discussing various approaches employed by nonfiction writers. Ultimately, though, this workshop is designed so that participants have a chance to compose their own positions on these questions. As writers of first-person narrative, we must be certain of our project, and that includes its ethical dimensions. Short readings, prompts, and exercises will enable us to explore fully the moral heart of the work that we do. Above all, this workshop is a “judgment free zone” where openness, honesty, and a delight in creative wildness are the only requirements.

Emily Bernard is the author of Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine, which was named one of the best books of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews and National Public Radio and received the 2020 LA Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for autobiographical prose. Her essays have been reprinted in Best American Essays, Best African American Essays, and Best of Creative Nonfiction. A 2020 Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Emily is the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English and a 2022-2023 Social Sciences, Humanities, and Creative Arts University Scholar at the University of Vermont.