To register or for more information, contact Sarah Geren at [email protected].

In this semester-long workshop, Lee Gutkind will proceed, step-by-step, through the entire writing true stories process, from finding the story to recreating scenes and building a scene-by-scene structure that is informative and cogent. Participants will learn how to read with a writer’s eye and recognize and utilize structural patterns. Literary techniques like dialog, flash descriptions, inner point of view, and the art of embedding information in story will be explained, illustrated, and practiced.

The skills and techniques developed in this class will be applicable to all forms of nonfiction—from long-form journalism, op-ed pieces, and speechwriting to book proposals, grant applications, and white papers. The course will begin with idea development—what you want to write about, the audience you are targeting, and the true story you want to tell—and your reasons for writing. There will be an overview of the creative nonfiction genre and, most importantly, of the craft—how to do what it is you will be doing for the entire semester. Writing process will also be discussed, along with the importance of keeping a regular schedule.

Writing True Stories That Matter is a workshop, with class discussion driving the learning and writing experience. Participants will read each other’s work and offer polite and honest responses. Gutkind will lead and monitor those discussions and provide timely lectures, adding information and insight along the way.

Published narratives will be deconstructed so that you will recognize how others bring together complicated subjects with multiple characters and intertwined ideas. The general legal, moral, and ethical challenges and quandaries that come to mind when fact is transformed into nonfiction narrative will be discussed.

Graduate-level class credits can be applied to a graduate degree at Arizona State University or transferred elsewhere. There will be networking opportunities with editors and agents, including Issues in Science and Technology, Creative Nonfiction, Slate, and others.

About Lee Gutkind

Recognized by Vanity Fair as “the Godfather behind creative nonfiction,” Gutkind is the author or editor of more than 35 books and founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction, the first and largest literary magazine to publish narrative nonfiction exclusively. He is Distinguished Writer-in-Residence in at the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes at Arizona State University and a professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society.

Gutkind has lectured to audiences around the world—from China to the Czech Republic, from Australia to Africa to Egypt. He has presented “Writing True Stories” workshops in Washington, D.C. at the National Press Club and the National Academy of Sciences. He has appeared on many national radio and television shows, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central), Good Morning America, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, as well as BBC World