Tim Z. Hernandez – Nonfiction

Love: The Experiments

A Creative Writing Workshop in Nonfiction

When drawing from material that is rooted in real life—particularly the heart matters—the process can quickly grow daunting and unwieldy, and it’s easy to feel uncertain in the barrage of ideas, voices, memories, story fragments, and even purpose. Questions like: How much to tell? Where to begin? What to leave out? Am I digging deep enough? Do I have permission to tell it? These questions haunt our writing process, and it’s easy to feel ungrounded. In this workshop we will experiment with our stories and memories by beginning each day with a meditation that is aimed at preparing our hearts and minds, and to foster a foundation of openness and presence. The rest of our time we will engage in generative writing prompts, discussions, and techniques, with the aim of developing practical tools for embracing the beautiful mess of writing, while at the same time pushing ourselves creatively beyond our comfort zones. Some topics will also include methods for research, questions of ethics, experimenting with hybrid forms, and practical concerns with craft, such as plot, organization, and character development, that typically arise when writing from real life—all of which will be discussion based. The meditation is an important aspect to this work, however you don’t need any experience as it’s designed for all levels.

Tim Z. Hernandez is an award-winning author, research scholar, and performer. His work includes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays, and he is the recipient of the American Book Award, the Colorado Book Award, and the International Latino Book Award. His work has been featured in Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, C-Span, NPR’s All Things Considered, and other publications. In 2011, he was named one of sixteen New American Poets by the Poetry Society of America, and most recently, he was recognized for his research on locating the victims of the 1948 plane wreck at Los Gatos Canyon, the incident made famous by Woody Guthrie’s song of the same name, which is chronicled in his book, All They Will Call You. Hernandez holds a B.A. and an M.F.A. in Writing & Literature from Bennington College, and he is an Associate Professor with the University of Texas El Paso’s Bilingual M.F.A. in Creative Writing. He was born and raised in California’s Central Valley, but now lives in El Paso, Texas with his two children. 

Learn more: timzhernandez.com