The word “essay” comes from the French essayer: “to try.” In this day-long workshop we’ll try our hand at writing several different kinds of essays.  We’ll look at some of the myriad forms an essay can take (personal, familiar and lyric), read different examples, and consider the ways form can intensify content. We’ll also write, starting with a series of generative exercises and ending with some draft-work towards an essay in the form(s) of your choice.

Please come ready to read, write, think, try, dare – and play.

Randon Billings Noble is an essayist. Her collection Be with Me Always was published by the University of Nebraska Press in March 2019, and her lyric essay chapbook Devotional was published by Red Bird in 2017. Other work has appeared in the Modern Love column of The New York Times, The Georgia Review, The Rumpus, Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Fourth Genre, and elsewhere. She has taught at American University; led writing workshops at Politics and Prose, the Writer’s Center and the Washington National Cathedral; and she has presented at conferences such as HippoCamp, NonfictioNOW, and AWP. Currently she is the founding editor of After the Art, and an occasional freelance reviewer for The A.V. Club.