Putting the Creative in Creative Non-Fiction
Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society
Date: February 5, 2025
Duration: 8 weeks
Cost: Members $300, non-members $400
There are many reasons we write personal stories. To heal, to share experiences, to teach, to engage. Whether it’s a memoir or a personal essay or somewhere in between, this can be a great way to share your stories.
In this course we’ll swipe techniques from best-selling novels and Oscar-winning films — yet stay true to our stories. We’ll learn how to incorporate great dialogue, set compelling scenes, flesh out memorable characters, find points of conflict/resolution and use literary elements such as metaphor, internal rhyme, analogy, illusion (and many more!) to make our stories sing. The last two weeks we will explore creative forms and structures such as hermit crab essay, braided essay, graphic essay, portrait essay, lyric essay —ad infinitum.
For more information and to register visit alexandrawriters.org.
About the instructor
Sandra Phinney’s stories have been published in over 70 publications including Nature Canada, Canadian Geographic, and the Toronto Star. She’s a regular contributor to JourneyWoman.com.
Currently, Sandra is focused on writing essays and books. Her fourth non-fiction book was a travel memoir for Pottersfield Press titled Waking Up In My Own Backyard. Currently, she’s completing a book of essays with the working title, Coming Home. Three other CNF books are in the works.
Sandra delivers writing workshops on topics ranging from narrative non-fiction, memoir and travel writing. In 2021, she was the Literary Artist-In-Residence for four weeks at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs UNESCO site. Recently, she was invited by the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia to be a mentor in the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program. Sandra lives off-grid with her husband on the Tusket River outside of Yarmouth, NS. In her spare time, you’ll find her paddling a canoe.