New Realities: Professional Nonfiction’ Course Descriptor

Course Overview

In the twenty-first century, creative nonfiction has cemented its status as a literary form highly sought after by print and online publications. But it is also a form which courts controversy, often raising moral and ethical issues regarding representation, the right to privacy, and subjective versus objective ‘truth’. This course will develop students’ awareness of the many professional applications of creative nonfiction, such as auto-fiction, biography and true crime, and employ experiential learning to furnish them with transferable practical skills, such as pitching nonfiction ideas, writing to briefs, interview techniques, and conducting effective research. Students will also explore and analyse at least two key ethical literary theories associated with writing from ‘real’ life, from critics such as Paul John Eakin and William Zissner, using these to inform both their creative work and critical/professional perspective. How much fiction can be introduced into nonfiction texts? Where does one draw ethical lines and who has the right to draw them? And what do we make of the emergent subgenre of the ‘literary hoax’?

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

Knowledge and Understanding

Subject Specific Skills

Transferable and Employability Skills

Teaching and Learning

This course has a dedicated Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) page with a syllabus and range of additional resources (e.g. readings, question prompts, tasks, assignment briefs, discussion boards) to orientate and engage you in your studies.

The scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course are:

Lectures and Workshops

40 scheduled hours – typically including induction, consolidation or revision, and assessment activity hours.

Version 1:all sessions in the same sized group

OR 

Version 2: most of the sessions in larger groups; some of the sessions in smaller groups

OR

Directed study 

4-12 scheduled hours, the exact number varying according to the balance of 1:1s, 2:1s, or small groups. The plan will be confirmed by the start of the course, taking into account student numbers and the proposed topics, readings, and specific tasks.

Faculty hold regular ‘office hours’, which are opportunities for students to drop in or sign up to explore ideas, raise questions, or seek targeted guidance or feedback, individually or in small groups. 

Students are to attend and participate in all the scheduled teaching and learning activities for this course and to manage their directed learning and independent study.

Indicative total learning hours for this course: 150

Assessment

Both formative and summative assessment are used as part of this course, with purely formative opportunities typically embedded within interactive teaching sessions, office hours, and/or the VLE. 

The summative assessment gives students the opportunity to develop a work of creative nonfiction in accordance with professional standards, and to interrogate and evaluate the ethical implications associated with writing creative nonfiction, as appropriate to form, in a reflective critical commentary.

Summative Assessments

Further information about the assessments can be found in the Course Syllabus.

Feedback

Students will receive formative and summative feedback in a variety of ways, written (e.g. marked up on assignments, through email or the VLE) or oral (e.g. as part of interactive teaching sessions or in office hours). 

Indicative Reading

Note: Comprehensive and current reading lists are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative reading list provided below is for a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Eakin, Paul John, How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999)
• Forché, Carolyn & Gerard, Philip (ed.), Writing Creative Nonfiction: Instruction and Insights from Teachers of the Associated Writing Program (Cincinnati: Story Press, 2001)
• Gutkind, Lee, The Art of Creative Nonfiction: Writing and Selling the Literature of Reality (Chichester: John Wylie & Sons, 2008)
• Hart, Jack, Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction, 2nd edn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021)
• Singer, Margot & Walker, Nicole (eds.), Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction (London: Bloomsbury, 2013)
• Zissner, William (ed.), Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (Boston: Houghton, 1987)

Indicative Topics

Note: Comprehensive and current topics for courses are produced annually in the Course Syllabus or other documentation provided to students; the indicative topics provided below is used as a general guide and part of the approval/modification process only.

• Methodologies and approaches to producing creative nonfiction
• Ethical implications of writing creative nonfiction
• Ethical reasoning
• Professional composition, drafting and  editing practices
• Publishing avenues, approaches and processes
• Creative writing workshops