Runtime: 2:39:28 Original Class Date: 12/16/2020 Class Readings: HERE HERE HERE
This video will teach you how to turn your own experiences, anecdotes, fears and ideas into compelling essays.
One of the most popular and innovative forms of writing today is the personal essay. In this class recording, students learn to pair traditional journalistic methods and structures with the narrative energy of short fiction and memoir in order to craft compelling essays.
The video focuses on:
- Basic elements and structures
- Figuring out the frame of the essay
- What to summarize and what to put into short scenes
- How structure changes depending on length (800 words versus, say, 2000)
- Expectations of fact-checkers and how to fact check your own memory
Antonio Ruiz-Camacho was born and raised in Toluca, Mexico. He moved to the U.S. at the age of 31 and began to write in English at 35. A former Knight Journalism fellow at Stanford University and a Dobie Paisano fellow in fiction by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Institute of Letters, he earned his MFA from The New Writers Project at UT Austin. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Salon, Texas Monthly and elsewhere. He is the author of the story collection Barefoot Dogs (Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Book of Fiction 2015) and the forthcoming novel The Healing Room.
