Jim Auchmutey is a veteran journalist and author in Atlanta. His most recent book is Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America, chosen as one of ten Books All Georgians Should Read by the Georgia Center for the Book — as was his previous book, The Class of ’65: A Student, a Divided Town, and the Long Road to Forgiveness. The latter was featured on C-SPAN and was a New York Times bestseller. Auchmutey was a reporter and editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for almost 30 years, where he was twice named the Cox newspaper chain’s Writer of the Year, and won a James Beard Foundation award for his food writing. He has taught narrative nonfiction writing at the Decatur Writers Studio and has lectured at Wofford College and Georgia State University. This will be his fourth class series at Georgia Writers Museum.
6-WEEK NARRATIVE NON-FICTION WORKSHOP
Mondays, March 2 – April 6 at 7pm via Zoom
Description
We all know how to tell a story, yet when it comes to writing one, we often become our own worst enemy. We tell readers what to think and feel. We throw in extraneous details because we have them. We telegraph the ending. Memorable stories do not happen in the inverted pyramid of journalism school; they unfold more like the ghost tales we told as kids. In this six-week course, we’ll learn how to recapture that natural sense of storytelling. We’ll study examples, do some writing, critique each other’s work. In fact, much of the class will be a roundtable workshop as opposed to a lecture.
Each week we’ll focus on a different aspect of nonfiction writing: creating memorable characters, staging conflict and complication, setting scene and atmosphere, finding your voice and style, distilling theme and meaning. We’ll also explore one of the hottest topics in our craft: the line between fact and fiction. And we’ll talk about any other writing issues you want to hash out.
This course should be useful for anyone looking to write a book, a memoir, essays, magazine articles, journalism small or large, or better blog posts. All levels of writers are welcome.
