Beyond the Writers' Workshop: New Ways to Write Creative Nonfiction

An innovative new approach to teaching and writing creative nonfiction from veteran teacher and critically acclaimed author Carol Bly.

Teachers and writers everywhere are facing the limits imposed by the prevailing models of teaching: community or MFA “workshops” or, at the high-school level, “peer review.” In Beyond the Writers' Workshop Carol Bly presents an alternative. She believes that
workshopping’s tendency to engage in wry scorn and pay exaggerated attention to technical details, causes apprentice writers, consciously or unconsciously, to modify their most passionate work.

Inspired by a philosophy of individuality and moral rigor, Bly combines ideas and techniques from social work, psychotherapy, and neuroscience with the traditional teaching of fresh metaphor, salient dialogue, lively pace, and analysis of other literary work in her pioneering new approach. She also includes exercises and examples in an extensive practical appendix.

Carol Bly was a critically acclaimed short story writer and essayist. She was the author of many books, including The Passionate, Accurate Story, a writing guide; My Lord Bag of Rice: New and Selected Stories; and an essay collection, Letters from the Country. She was a frequent and respected lecturer at conferences of the National Council of Teachers of English, Associated Writing Programs, and the National Association of Social Workers. She lived in St. Paul, Minnesota.