NEWS
Spring is a time for cleaning, it's true. But this year we give you full permission to ignore the twelve tubes of almost-finished wrapping  paper in your closet and the haphazard organization of your family photos. This year, for a change, we encourage you to polish your words.
Starting in April, CNF is offering seven online classes that attack the genre from all angles, including new sessions of Basics in a Nutshell and Writing the Personal Essay.
Classes run for 10 weeks beginning April 4, 2011; sections are limited to 12 students. Visit our website to register and to view complete course details. Basics in a Nutshell introduces writers to the basics of creative nonfiction, exploring both the techniques used to gather information and the literary skills needed to turn bare facts into personal and compelling essays. Writing the Personal Essay takes a close look at the writing and research skills needed to write a memoir or personal essay. We'll discuss how to best use detail, dialogue, structure and description, as well as how to collect information through interviews, research and other methods. Writing and Editing Your Blog explores how to write successfully in a genre that is barely a decade old. Writers will learn how to use literary techniques and blogging technology to engage an audience. Travel Writing focuses on the fundamental aspects of travel writing--from shaping story ideas to getting published. Participants will learn how to apply interviewing and research techniques, reporting, immersion skills, and the basic elements of narrative writing to create absorbing travel stories. Writing the Nonfiction Book Proposal examines how to craft the various sections of a book proposal--combining sales pitch, book outline, manuscript, and marketing strategy--and explains what steps to take afterward to pursue publication. Advanced Memoir/Personal Essay Writing is designed for those who have already explored the basics of personal writing and wish to move on to a larger project or to more challenging forms. Students can either work on sections of a memoir or on personal essays in a variety of styles, learning how to structure chapters or essays, incorporate research into personal writing, develop character, use descriptive language effectively and more. Immersion Journalism delves into the genre for which the writer observes, participates, interviews and otherwise intimately explores his or her subject. We'll take an in-depth look at the history and craft of this style of nonfiction writing. Students will learn important fly-on-the-wall techniques such as sharp observation, skillful note taking, laid-back interviewing and how to organize and structure immersion stories. Visit our FAQ page for additional information, or if you don't find what you need, direct questions to course instructor Anjali Sachdeva at sachdeva[at]creativenonfiction.org.
In other news, after months of eating our way through more than 600 food blog nominations, we've finally whittled the list down to 16 finalists. Two of these posts will find their way into our upcoming Food issue (#41/Spring 2011), but we figured we'd share the other 14, to hold you over in the meantime:
"A Glutton for Gluten" by Jess Thomson "An (Almost) All-American Thanksgiving" by Felicia Lee "Baking Bread, Making a Living" by Karen Coates "Cooking in Lahore: An American Woman In A Pakistani Kitchen" by Heather Cerreiro "Cooking in Madagascar" by Marthe Weyandt "Death and the Table." by Cole Campbell "Devouring The Monster" by Julie A. Ward "Duck Hunting: The Born Again" by Michael R. Shea "In anticipation of frost" by Cole Campbell "K is for Korean fish Market" by Elizabeth Browne "Saffron: Spendy Threads" by Jess Thomson "The Burger of a Lifetime" by Felicia Lee "The Snail Eaters" by Joyce Hanson "Tuesday, August 17th" by Anonymous
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