Grace Perry

Instructor Bio: 

Grace Perry, author of The 2000s Made Me Gay: Essays on Pop Culture. Ms. Perry is a contributor to The Onion, Reductress, Outside, BuzzFeed, Eater, The Takeout, Chicago Magazine, and more. She is the co-creator of the podcast series Who Killed Jenny Schecter? and was named “a talented new voice,” by Publishers Weekly.

Instructor Statement:

I learned to write by gossiping on AIM in 2003. In an increasingly digital world, we’re all writing all the time — texts, emails, Instagram captions. So, everyone has some kind of voice, storytelling style, and way of crafting a narrative, however clunky and typo-filled it may be. Regardless of how much one journals, these days, everyone is technically a writer. This is my starting point as a teacher; from there, I help students own, challenge, and expand upon their own voices.

Whether or not we’d like to admit it, most of us live pretty boring lives. (Yes, even writers!) Luckily, nonfiction writing isn’t about recanting wild stories. Rather, it’s about finding an emotional truth to a story, zeroing in on a unique perspective. As a teacher, I’ll help you locate that interesting nugget at the center of your piece. Together, we’ll use your own perspective to guide your nonfiction writing.