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Writers In-Between:
Creative Nonfiction from the Writing Program

On Wednesday, April 20th, the Writing Program held its final Nonfiction Reading Series event for the academic year.  The event, organized by Professor of Writing and Rhetoric and Women’s Studies Minnie Bruce Pratt, brought together readers from the Composition and Cultural Rhetoric Program and the Writing and Rhetoric Major, all of whom read from creative nonfiction that they had produced in Pratt’s WRT 422 and WRT 438/638 courses.

Pratt notes that creative nonfiction is “quintessentially interdisciplinary” and “a congenial space to work in if you’re trying to figure something out.”  Creative nonfiction is flourishing at the edge of the global 21st century, as writers combine poetry, essay, biography, history, economics, philosophy, physics, sociology, tall-tale-telling—just about any form and any "subject." In all fields of inquiry, creative nonfiction rejects either/or, and demands both/and.  In her introduction, Writing Program Chair Eileen Schell explained that Pratt has truly taken up some of the goals of creative nonfiction, pushing genres and writing in a language that is accessible to all.

Pratt also read an excerpt from her most recent book, Inside the Money Machine, and she says that it was exciting to read her work alongside her former students: "I first saw the writing that readers brought to the audience today as rough hand-written notes, typed drafts, even lists, in one of the creative nonfiction classes where we worked together. It's such a thrill to see the compelling, complex development of their writing since that beginning. And it's an honor for me as their teacher to get a chance to read my work in conversation with theirs."  The event’s other readers included Alonna Berry, Laura J. Davies, Michelle Giordano, Nicole Gonzales Howell, Missy Watson, and Benjamin Zender. 

—story by Emily Dressing

“My experience engaging with creative nonfiction has been a vehicle for me to become political. Using the narratives of my life to begin critically engaging in socioeconomic issues and historical constructions of class was something I really hadn't anticipated. This genre and the mentorship of Minnie Bruce pushed me in ways that standard academic reading and writing hadn't and couldn't. And I don't think I'll ever write or read the same again.”
–Missy Watson		   “I grew considerably as a person, a student and as a writer in WRT 422 with Minnie Bruce, and the growth was something you could actually recognize while it was happening rather than retrospectively. . . The exposure to other people's experiences and exposing some of my own was a remarkable experience not likely to be duplicated in other academic settings.”
–Michelle Giordano

pictured above (left to right): Minnie Bruce Pratt, Alonna Berry, Benjamin Zender, Laura J. Davies, Michelle Giordano, Nicole Gonzales Howell, Missy Watson.

“Writing is my passion but creative nonfiction is my home . . . . The class I took with Minnie Bruce pushed me to new levels in my writing and took me to places I never thought imaginable. . . Minnie Bruce taught me to run with me and see where I end up; I've discovered my possibilities are endless.” 
-Alonna Berry
“I've taken two CNF courses with Minnie Bruce.  Both have allowed me an amazing opportunity to understand and explore more of my own experience and help express these complexities in grounded terms.”
–Benjamin Zender
“I took Minnie Bruce's course last May, and it was a really valuable course for me, both personally and professionally. It gave me the space to think through ideas that have been simmering on my back brain burner for awhile, ideas that I didn't have the time to write about between all the academic and teaching work I'd been doing for so long. But those two short weeks reminded me why I came into the field in the first place, and since then, I've been trying to find myself regular time to pursue the craft of my writing in creative nonfiction.”
-Laura Davies
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