I am a Junior at SLU and am an English major with a focus in Creative Non-Fiction. I really enjoy non-fiction because it allows me to relive past experiences and for others to see it and hopefully experience it the same way I did. I hope to one day be published at some level but my real life goal is to own several small businesses. Writing is more of a passion than a career path as of right now. I live in White Plains, NY which is about 30 minutes north of NYC. I moved there from the Bronx in 8th grade. White Plains was once a small subburb but as of recent Donald Trump and Capelli have made it into a miniature Manhattan. The traffic is enough to make even a Buddhist monk homicidal.
Outside of writing I really enjoy friends, rugby, and my family. I try to be as active as possible by going on biking, canoeing, and sometimes (but rarely) running. Rugby to me is a culmination and release of everything in life. It combines friendship and loyalty with competition and athleticism. My friends and family sustain my sanity and have made me who I am.
I have taking 2 other writing intensive classes that have focused on the importance of the workshop process and my experiences are all positive. The one problem I have with workshopping is staying silent while others critique my work because I want to try and explain myself but I have begun to realize I wouldn’t need to explain it if I just wrote it. Feedback has always improved my work; it has made my work more accessible and understandable to my readers. Having gone through several workshops I have found that it is best to have other eyes read your work and help extract what you forgot to write down or took for granted.
My favorite all time writer is Augusten Burroughs I also really enjoy David Sedaris, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison. What I enjoy most about these writers is there honesty and attention to detail. Burroughs and Sedaris take their real lives and illustrate them so well that I can live vicariously through their lives. Right and Ellison fascinate me because I have always enjoyed reality and the struggle of life and how it is portrayed. They wrote about their lives and how difficult it was to be a black man and the struggles they faced daily. Although I think Steinbeck is an accomplished writer I cannot stand his chapter long descriptions of sand blowing across the sweat stained backs of Okies.
Good writing to me consists of vivid verbs and detailed descriptions; sentences and plots that have a direct path and purpose. The writers I mentioned above all incorporate those criteria and get their points across. Good writing doesn’t just use these things but actually accomplishes them.
From this class I hope to find a way to better illustrate and convey my emotions. Sedaris describes his life truthfully but with an added level of absurdity. That’s what I want to do I want to describe an everyday situation and make it absurd.
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Wright (who's from my home state) and (even more so) Ellison are among my favorite writers, too! Have you read any Percival Everett? He's a younger author who's very much aware of his relation to Wright and Ellison--though he's more comedic than either of them. I think he's very smart.
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