{"id":1136,"date":"2011-03-08T16:06:25","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T22:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/?p=1136"},"modified":"2011-03-08T16:06:25","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T22:06:25","slug":"creative-nonfiction-course-at-school-of-writing-explores-exciting-new-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/2011\/creative-nonfiction-course-at-school-of-writing-explores-exciting-new-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Creative Nonfiction Course at School of Writing Explores Exciting New Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edmonton\u2019s Myrna Kostash invited to teach literary journalism at CMU\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Instruction in one of the exciting fields for writers, the area of literary journalism, is being offered at The School of Writing at CMU 2011, held this year from May 9 to 13.<\/p>\n

Those not familiar with the term Creative Nonfiction might be prompted to ask, \u201cBut what is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The instructor for the course, Edmonton\u2019s Myrna Kostash, encounters this question quite often. \u201cI’ve found that there is much confusion about what is meant by the term. People often ask me: what could be \u2018creative\u2019 about \u2018nonfiction\u2019? So in this course we will look at definitions and examples, do classroom exercises, and workshop participants\u2019 writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creative nonfiction, sometimes called literary journalism or narrative nonfiction, is a growing field of writing in Canada and around the world. The style combines literary techniques with factual narratives, and can encompass political, travel, or historical writing, memoir, biography, and many other fields. As Kostash notes in the 2004 \u201cBanff Declaration\u201d of the Creative Nonfiction Collective: \u201cWe believe that nonfiction is the intellectual lifeblood of public imagination and discourse\u201d and that the \u201cvitality of Canadian literary life must be measured by the state of its nonfiction as well as of fiction and poetry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kostash says: \u201cStudents begin the course scratching their heads and finish with an enthusiastic commitment to the genre\u2014if not as writers, then as readers. It’s thrilling to see this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Myrna Kostash has been awarded the Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of the Writing Life from the Writers\u2019 Trust of Canada. She has also served as chair of The Writers\u2019 Union of Canada. Recently Kostash was named to the City of Edmonton’s Salute to Excellence Arts and Culture Hall of Fame and awarded the Writers Guild of Alberta Golden Pen Award for lifetime achievement.<\/p>\n

Prodigal Daughter: A Journey to Byzantium <\/em>is the title of Myrna Kostash\u2019s most recent book. It is described as a historical, cultural, and spiritual odyssey that begins in Edmonton, ranges around the Balkans, and delivers the author to an unexpected place\u2014the threshold of her childhood church.<\/p>\n

Some of Kostash\u2019s other works include All of Baba’s Children, No Kidding: Inside the World of Teenage Girls<\/em>, Bloodlines: A Journey into Eastern Europe, The<\/em> Next Canada: In Search of Our Future Canada,<\/em> and Reading the River: A Traveller\u2019s Companion to the North Saskatchewan<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Places are available in the Creative Nonfiction course, and in the Preaching and Fiction courses taught by Allan Rudy-Froese and Marina Endicott. The application deadline for the School of Writing has been extended to March 15.<\/p>\n

Tuition for the School of Writing $575, which includes five days of lunches, coffee breaks, and a Friday evening banquet. Financial support is available.<\/p>\n

Visit the School of Writing website at www.cmu.ca\/schoolofwriting<\/a> <\/em>for more information and to download an application form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edmonton\u2019s Myrna Kostash invited to teach literary journalism at CMU\u00a0\u00a0 Instruction in one of the exciting fields for writers, the area of literary journalism, is being offered at The School of Writing at CMU 2011, held this year from May 9 to 13. Those not familiar with the term Creative Nonfiction might be prompted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[25,5],"tags":[101],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1136"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1140,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1136\/revisions\/1140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cmu.ca\/media_archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}