Online | Nonfiction | Workshop

6-Week Online Nonfiction Workshop: Writing the Weird & the Wonderful

The world is a weird place, and we’re just here to document it. This course is for the scribes, the armchair historians, the miners of weird information — all of you aspiring nonfiction writers who aren’t sure what to do with your ideas, or budding freelance journalists looking to turn your ideas into sellable stories.

In this workshop, students will create new works inspired by their own bits of brilliance and finely-hone them into workshopped pieces of nonfiction. We’ll take an idea from start to finish: generating story ideas, discussing options for research, conducting interviews, gaining trust with subjects, writing effective pitches, outlining and playing with structure and the editing process. Discussions will focus on the building blocks of great nonfiction stories, including writing visceral scenes, conducting effective interviews, story structures that work and mastering the almighty nutgraf. We will have short weekly writing assignments to flex your creative muscles, in addition longer assignment(s).

We’ll also read excerpts from nonfiction writers who have tons of style: Joan Didion, Nicole Chung, Ijeoma Uluo, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah, and several more. When this class is over, you’ll have written, workshopped, conferenced and brainstormed your heart out — and you’ll come away more confident with how to sell your amazing ideas.

This class will meet over our video chat platform. You will need to use Google Chrome and a computer to join your class meetings.

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

- At least workshopped piece of nonfiction

- A journal of story ideas that you can turn into future pieces

- Renewed inspiration for finding new ideas

- Personal attention from the instructor on refining your goals, talking through ideas, and asking questions

COURSE SKELETON:

Week 1: Introductions, Reading Discussion, Writing Assignment

Week 2: Reading Discussion + Idea Generation and Pitch Session + Writing Workshop 1

Week 3: Reading Discussion + Research Tools and Interview Basics + Writing Workshop 2

Week 4: Reading Discussion + Pitching + Writing Workshop 3

Week 5: Reading Discussion + Story Structure + Writing Workshop 4

Week 6: Reading Discussion + Editing roundtable  

Leah Sottile

Leah Sottile is a freelance journalist whose features, profiles, investigations and essays have been featured by The Washington Post, The New York Times MagazinePlayboy, Rolling Stone, California Sunday Magazine, The Atlantic and many others. She is the author and host of the podcast Bundyville, a nine-part written story and 14-part podcast made in collaboration with Longreads and Oregon Public Broadcasting.