The Stories of Your Life: Personal Essays and Creative Nonfiction
with Colin Corrigan
November 12, 2025
Length: 10 Weeks
Open to AllText and Live Video
Zoom calls Sundays at 10:30AM Eastern
Original price was: $645.00.$550.00Current price is: $550.00.
Original price was: $645.00.$550.00Current price is: $550.00.Enroll Now
The stories we tell each other, and ourselves, help us make sense of, and create meaning in, our lives. And the personal essay has a unique power to bring clarity to our own experiences, so that we can discover new things about ourselves.
This ten-week course will be fun and inspirational, wide-ranging and deep-delving. You’ll be guided through a process of inquiry that will help you reflect on your experiences, observe the world around you, bring your memories to life, and research topics that fascinate you. We’ll explore the possibilities of experimentation, and the ethics of telling stories that aren’t only yours to tell. And we’ll consider the means by which we can convey our insights, our convictions, and our awe to our readers.
Along the way, we will read and discuss exemplary essays from Roman times through to the present day, by authors such as Seneca, Michel de Montaigne, Virginia Woolf, Natalia Ginzburg, Annie Dillard, Teju Cole, Yiyun Li, Krys Malcolm Belc, Carmen Maria Machado, and Robert Macfarlane.
You will perform a series of exercises designed to help you cultivate new material, and innovate new ways to share your ideas and your experiences with others. You will write a thousand words each week, and receive feedback on your writing from your classmates and your instructor—we’ll dedicate much of our class time to workshopping the writing generated by you and your classmates, in a combination of small-group and full-class discussions. You will emerge with at least three brand-new essays, and a clear sense of how you can harness the possibilities of this amazing form.
Who This Course is For
This course is for anyone who would like to explore the possibilities of the personal essay and creative nonfiction. Whether you’re a beginner looking for tips on how to get started, or a seasoned writer in search of a fresh approach, this class will offer you the motivation, accountability, and guidance you need to write at least three new essays, and the tools you need to develop an essay-writing practice.
Learning & Writing Goals
Learning Goals
- Identify and develop story material using a range of approaches
- Reflect upon your own experiences and preoccupations to uncover compelling questions
- Develop observational skills, invoking all the senses
- Enliven your scene narration, to bring a memory to life
- Improve and diversify your research skills
- Consider complex ethical questions
- Tap into a long tradition of essay writing, and the contemporary conversation surrounding creative nonfiction
- Analyze exemplary essays by a host of celebrated authors, and mine them for inspiration and craft tips
Writing Goals
- Write a thousand words each week for ten weeks
- Generate at least three new essays
- Complete a series of custom-designed writing exercises
- Read and respond to your classmates’ work to produce insightful, constructive feedback
- Process feedback from your classmates and your instructor
- Discuss strategies for developing material and revising drafts
Zoom Schedule
We will meet on Zoom each week on Sundays 10:30AM Eastern.
Weekly Syllabus
Week One: Tradition
We’ll begin by looking at the long tradition of essay writing, and considering what this complex history means for us as writers penning essays in 2025. We’ll read examples by Michel de Montaigne and Yiyun Li, and set our goals and our schedule for the coming ten weeks—each of our subsequent classes will have a significant focus on workshopping the writing generated by you and your classmates, in a combination of small-group and full-class discussions. You will begin writing your first new essay.
Week Two: Reflection
This week, we will explore how reflecting on our experiences and preoccupations, and engaging with topics we find perplexing, can help us identify the subjects we want to write about, and delve beneath their surfaces to arrive at new insights. We’ll discuss some reflections from Seneca, and you will continue to work on your first essay.
Week Three: Attention
This week we will hone our observation skills, to better pay attention to what’s around us, and to more vividly portray our subjects in our writing. We’ll read an essay by Annie Dillard, and you will complete your first piece.
Week Four: Recollection
This week we will focus on memory, its vagaries and depths, and the ways that past events continue to influence our lives and the world around us. We’ll look at an example from Natalia Ginzburg, and you will begin your second new essay.
Week Five: Interpretation
This week we will seek inspiration from art and music, and discuss how the essay can respond to, and interact with, other creative forms. We’ll draw instruction from Teju Cole, and you will continue work on your second essay.
Week Six: Conversation
This week we’ll discuss tips and tricks for how to conduct useful research, and for how to harness it in our own writing without getting bogged down in the details. We’ll read an article by Robert Macfarlane, and you will complete your second essay.
Week Seven: Experimentation
This week we’ll look at how flexible the essay can be, and how getting creative with the form can help us express ourselves in new ways. We’ll read an essay by Krys Malcolm Belc, and you will begin writing your third new essay.
Week Eight: Consideration
This week we will tackle the thorny question of the ethics involved in writing about our lives and the experiences of others—and also at how those tensions can generate compelling material. We’ll discuss a piece by Carmen Maria Machado, and you will develop your third essay.
Week Nine: Revelation
This week, we’ll look at how the insights we gain from our own encounters and experiences can help elevate our writing. We’ll read an essay by Virginia Woolf, and you will complete the third of your new essays.
Week Ten: Conviction
This week, we’ll look at strategies we can employ to convince our reader of the truth and importance of something we believe in. We’ll discuss a piece by James Baldwin, as you begin to chart the next steps on your creative, nonfictional journey.
Original price was: $645.00.$550.00Current price is: $550.00.Enroll Now
Student Feedback for Colin Corrigan:
I had a wonderful experience in this course. The feeling that Colin and the other students created was positive and encouraging while also carefully pointing out areas for improvement and/or further development. The weekly topics were inspiring. They were also different enough that we needed to stretch our thinking and writing in new ways but they also built on each other. I also liked the 1,000 word limit for each week’s essay because it was enough to develop an idea pretty fully and it felt do-able within a weekly timeframe. Overall, just a very positive, helpful, inspiring course. Annie Abbott
What I love about this class is how much it’s given me tools that I feel I can keep using. It introduces structure and process into the revision journey, which sometimes has felt more unmanageable to me in the past. Just fantastic! Zoë G.
This workshop was my favorite writing class I’ve taken to date—and I’ve taken a lot of writing classes. The atmosphere was welcoming, safe, and nurturing, while also providing room for growth and discovery. I can’t say enough how much I appreciated this class. I’m sad it’s over! Lauren Harkawik
The workshops were amazing and Colin was incredibly well organized, supportive, encouraging, a great discussion prompter and gave very helpful feedback. Ann Cami
Regardless of whether the student was inexperienced (me) or very knowledgable and on a different level, Colin pushed them a little farther making them better writers. Nice work, Colin. Sam B
I learned a lot, the instructor was awesome, so nice, welcoming, gave great feedback without making us feel discouraged. I loved the entire class, the prompts, the sharing of the essays. I finally actually did write instead of just think about it! I also discovered how much fun writing is for me once I stop over-thinking, over-judging, and over-analyzing. It was so much fun! The highlight of my week for the last 6 weeks. Stefanie Gauguet
Colin was a marvelous teacher! He was so clear about his expectations and the course was so well designed to take a close look at one of our short stories. I learned so much about how to go about revising—it is not just magical thinking! it is a careful checklist of qualities. Colin gave us an invaluable checklist! Thank you, Colin! Kate Sullivan
This class was amazing. Colin is a great teacher and the atmosphere was lively. The class gave me courage to continue on my path. I found it to be intimate and insightful. Deirdre Reddington
The class far exceeded my expectations in how much I learned about short story revision. I am walking away from this class with so much more knowledge and confidence about the revision process. Nancy S.
I must say that the class exceeded all of my expectations on every possible front! At the risk of sounding sappy, I must say this has been the best writing instruction I have ever received! The instructor, Colin Corrigan, was incredibly knowledgable and supportive and structured the class perfectly. Colin’s videotaped lessons were full of helpful information and he selected craft articles and short stories that matched his lesson content perfectly. Even students in the class who had received their MFA’s reported that they were learning new things from these articles and lessons. He established a supportive atmosphere, right off the bat, building trust within the group, and provided us with the most specific and helpful guidelines for offering and receiving writing feedback that I’ve ever seen in my life. The assignments each week were incredibly helpful and relevant and I will use them again for other pieces that I write. Colin was responsive and always participated in every discussion in a meaningful way, but he never dominated the discussion. He knew to wait, to let his students share first, and made sure to remark on the comments of all of his students over the course of the class. He had a way of making us all feel valued in the group. Our class was filled with thoughtful, talented, generous, readers and this added to my enjoyment as well. Many participants were very experienced; some were writing teachers, most were published in numerous places, several had received their MFA’s, and yet Colin was clearly the teacher of this group, adding to the discussion, elevating it, and helping us all to grow from where we started. His critiques were thoughtful and insightful. I left the class with a much more polished short story, but even more importantly, with a new understanding of the revision process and a lot of tools for improving my other work. Alison Bullock
November 12, 2025
Length: 10 Weeks
Open to AllText and Live Video
Zoom calls Sundays at 10:30AM Eastern
Original price was: $645.00.$550.00Current price is: $550.00.
Original price was: $645.00.$550.00Current price is: $550.00.Enroll Now
