ENGL 3351 (MWF 11-11:50) — Creative Nonfiction: Cut to the Quick
Titled Cut to the Quick, this course will focus on the sub-genre of the flash essay. Situated somewhere between prose poem and micro-narrative, flash essays provide us the path to lyrically explore a topic while taking both narrative and syntactical leaps. Or, as Bernard Cooper says, the flash essay teaches us “an alertness to detail, a quickening of the senses, and a focusing of the literary lens until one has magnified some small aspect of what it means to be human.” During the course of the semester, we will approach our classroom like a writing lab, conducting in-class writing experiments and workshops of each other’s work. We will write five flash essays — 1,000 words or less — to be revised in a final portfolio.
