Nonfiction | Workshop

8-Week Advanced Nonfiction: Criticism Gets Personal

Weaving personal storytelling into reviews, essays, profiles and other writing forms takes experience and a deft touch. In this eight-week class, we'll examine the ways that writers like Meghan Daum, Mary H.K. Choi, Jessica Pressler, Mike Albo and Geoff Dyer use their strong voices and unique perspectives to elevate a shopping column or transform a movie review into something more interesting than the movie itself. Then we'll experiment with these forms ourselves, producing one piece on an assigned subject and one on a topic of the student's choice. Writers will workshop twice, and will meet once with Emily for an individual conference.

Emily Gould

Emily Gould is the author of a novel, Friendship, and an essay collection, And the Heart Says Whatever. With Ruth Curry, she runs the feminist publishing project Emily Books.

Testimonials

"I have worked with Emily Gould as an editor for almost four years, and my work is so much better for it. She’s helped me with personal essays and short stories, short projects and long. She can work at any level I need her to and she instinctively starts at the right one. When my ideas and/or a piece is new, her comments are global while still being thorough; she shows me how to shape, sharpen, and firm, and reveals things I didn’t even know were there through her notes and our discussions. When my work is more polished, she gets in on the paragraph and sentence level and finds weaknesses, contradictions, or missed opportunities in places I’ve worked over a million times. She has a strong and specific perspective, one that leans away from “safe” – and its helped me trust myself as well as make my work stand out. That said, she doesn’t impose anything. Her goal is to keep you faithful to your unique voice, and to make your piece better, and in my case, she always does."

Anya Yurchyshyn author of MY DEAD PARENTS

"Emily has given me invaluable guidance on my writing—cookbook proposals, personal essays, short stories. She’s been most helpful in helping to identify what’s actually important, what my work is really about when it’s in a murky stage (and, conversely, this is useful for helping me understand what it’s not about). She always does it a way that’s both pragmatic and encouraging. I leave our writing group sessions with renewed energy for my work."

Lukas Volger author of BOWL: VEGETARIAN RECIPES FOR RAMEN, PHO, BIBIMBAP, DUMPLINGS, AND OTHER ONE-DISH MEALS

"FRIENDSHIP is superficially about youngish, self-involved writerly types, but it’s really about people who are trying to be good and finding it hard. This is a book about ethics-about the real, unglamorous daily battle that is not being a jerk. FRIENDSHIP has that same magical universality-in-specificity that make us care about the local politics of MIDDLEMARCH or Clarissa Dalloway’s floral arrangements. In tiny brushstrokes, Gould captures the small weirdnesses of being alive, of sitting in an interview and being suddenly and unaccountably struck with a desire to bite through the rim of a teacup . . . The best part of the novel is Bev and Amy: their fights and pettinesses, sure, but mostly their love . . . Praising Gould for writing a genuine-seeming female friendship is almost insulting, like praising her for knowing how to use page numbers. But in a literary landscape where no one seems to be able to count, Gould has created the kind of friendship that is not shallow, silly or a plot sideline, but private, deep and more real than almost anything else. It’s enough to make your <3 sing."

Annalisa Quinn NPR

"A scintillating debut novel . . . No threat of veils here: just the biting, brilliant exploration of a modern female friendship."

Megan Labrise KIRKUS

"Emily Gould’s perspective and editing of my work has been invaluable—she has tremendous talent for considering big picture ideas and themes in your work, publishing venues, and helping you stay true to your own unique voice. She caters to each writer like the individual they are, plus, she supports antiheroines, she’s no bull-shit and she’s honest as hell."

Chloe Caldwell author of I'LL TELL YOU IN PERSON and WOMEN