When the World Is Hard: Writing Toward Joy in Nonfiction

This workshop will consider the ways writers can craft their work toward joy while also exploring difficult content. We’ll consider techniques for this exploration, as well as techniques toward a balanced approach. Discussing the specific strategies of varied nonfiction writers, such as Ross Gay, Maggie Smith, Taylor Brorby and Deborah Taffa, we’ll examine the specific ways they weave in joy or hope and also bring forward difficult content. In addition, we’ll do some writing toward striking a balance in our own nonfiction, and we’ll workshop a scene or opening section (maximum five double-spaced pages) from a work-in-progress piece by each writer. Writers from all types of creative nonfiction are welcome.

Toni Jensen is the author of Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land, a Dayton Peace Prize finalist and a New York Times Editors’ Choice book. Jensen’s essays have appeared in magazines such as Orion, Catapult and Ecotone. She also is the author of the story collection From the Hilltop. Jensen has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing and Translation at the University of Arkansas. She is Métis.