Classes

upcoming:
Experimental Essay Forms: All Prompts, ALL THE TIME
via Write or Die
5/5/25 , 7pm-9pm CT
$50
(register here)

You need a class so you can tell your partner or your kids “Sorry, I have a class rn” but really, you just need the focused time to write? This is the class for you. Two hours. Eight prompts. Four mini craft-talks on experimental essay forms.

Curious about experimental essays and want a crash course in the practice of writing them as well? Or maybe you’re just looking for inspiration. Either way, this course is a blistering HOUR AND A HALF of 8 (eight) sprint prompts, dispensed every ten minutes and supported throughout by yours truly, who will provide brief (but effective!) introductions to four different experimental essay forms (speculative, constraint, erasure, and visual) before each set.

My good friends, y’all are gonna WRITE. And when the class is over and you have carpal tunnel, you’ll also have EIGHT ESSAY STARTS. That you did! Good for you!

previous classes taught:

Writing the Experimental Essay
taught via Writing Workshops
2/1/23-3/1/23
taught via Zoom
12/1/21-3/1/22
taught via The Stables
7/10-7/31/21

The essay is arguably the most elastic form of literature, at times allowing journalism, personal recollection, biography, and current events to coexist in a single space. But the essay needs containers to hold its matter which are as bendable and movable as its wide-ranging subjects. We will explore four modes of experimenting with essay structure: The Speculative Essay (the real + the unreal), The Erasure Essay (creating yours from theirs), The Visual Essay (image + text), and The Constraint Essay (form-dependent/hermit crab). Through discussion, readings, and take-home exercises in these 1.5-hour classes, writers will stretch their own limits and explore new frontiers in nonfiction, finding that the methods to examine truth and facts are endless.

Artifacts into Art: Nonfiction Excavation
taught via Lafayette Writers’ Studio
1/28/23

The artifacts we collect have unique, distinct meanings specific to our own experiences. The feathers, the mixtapes, the framed photos, the clothes. The metaphor writes itself: artifacts are a natural complement to our writing practice! In this workshop we will read essays which use artifacts in their construction, we will practice writing essays which lean on artifacts as evidence to corroborate our truth, and we will learn how to turn written artifacts (our own or others’) into essays. Through readings, discussion, in-class assignments, and take-home prompts, writers will appreciate the value of their artifacts anew.

Lectures/Service

I have given guest lectures on experimental nonfiction and erasure essays for the University of Arizona, Sweet Briar College, the University of Nebraska-Omaha and Washington State University.

I presented a lecture on the inquiry for truth in nonfiction for Oklahoma State University.

I have given guest lectures on directing a small press for Oklahoma State University, the University of Baltimore, Bridgewater State University, the University of Nebraska-Omaha, and Washington State University, and as part of the Virtual Speaker Series in Writing, Publishing, and Editing for the University of North Dakota.

I judged the Kay W. Levin Award for Short Nonfiction for the Wisconsin Writers Awards and have served as a reviewer for nonfiction manuscripts under consideration at university presses.

I love talking to students! To find out my availability, please contact me at kristine at kristinelangleymahler dot com