Writing the Family Narrative

About this course:

As writers, our ancestral history breathes through our bodies and appears on the written page, whether we realize it or not. The stories of those who came before us—and the legacies they bear, for better or worse—are what we carry. We’ll use family history, gossip, and lore, as well as photographs, ephemera, and other available documentation to discover the factual and emotional truths of ourselves and our families. We’ll explore different ways to tell these stories, even when little information is known. Each week we’ll build a small body of hybrid creative nonfiction work and look at what these narratives say about us and the people in our lives.