40 Towns: A Workshop in Creative Nonfiction
I've wanted to take a creative writing class at Dartmouth for my entire time here, particularly creative nonfiction. I've written creative nonfiction on my own time and never really shared it with anyone for a good portion of my life, but the formal opportunity to get feedback on my work and strengthen it was always something that really appealed to me. I tried to get into CRWT 11: Introduction to Creative Nonfiction last winter, but it only had 12 spots, and it filled up fast. I adored the class on Virginia Woolf I took instead, but the allure of a creative nonfiction course remained. CRWT 11 wasn't offered this spring, but it being my final quarter here, I decided to take a chance and apply for CRWT 21: Intermediate Creative Nonfiction without the prerequisite just to see what happened. To my surprise, I got a spot in the class, and I think it might be my favorite class I've taken here!
CRWT 21, like last term's CRWT 11, is taught by Prof. Sharlet, whose profile on the department website illustrates well his plethora of literary achievements, but not at all what it is like to learn from him. In some ways, these past three weeks in Prof. Sharlet's classroom have altered the way I look at and engage with the world around me, and have pushed me to do a number of things I normally wouldn't do simply because they scare me (and I have plenty more growth to do on that front before the class ends, too).
For the first half of the term, alongside readings for each class, we write a story each and every week—a true story, the only parameter for most of these assignments being that it has to happen beyond the edge of the Dartmouth campus. For example, last week I wrote a story about a psychic fair at the Main Street Museum in White River Junction; my classmates have written about circuses, firefighters, tombstones… the possibilities are truly endless. Each class meeting, one or two writers read their stories aloud to receive workshop feedback from their peers—it's a bit nerve-wracking the first time, especially as someone who's never really shared my creative writing in a classroom environment before, but the critiques from Prof. Sharlet and classmates alike are very helpful and well worth it.
Our final assignment for the class is going to be a 12-20 page story from the Upper Valley, for publication in 40 Towns, the periodical Prof. Sharlet has been publishing with his students for years (though this term it'll be making its first comeback since the beginning of the pandemic). I don't know what I'll be writing yet, but I've loved exploring the Upper Valley outside of Dartmouth's campus, going to places and events out of pure curiosity, and talking to strangers in the hopes of finding a story. Sometimes I don't find a story, and that's part of the process too, but I'm so appreciative of the chance to be stretched both in my writing and in the experiences I seek out.