Embrace The Chaos: A Non-Fiction Primer
When drawing from material that is rooted in the actual, the process can quickly grow unwieldy, and it’s easy to feel lost amid the clutter of ideas, story fragments, voices, memories and even purpose. Questions like: Where to begin? How to end? What to include? What to leave out? Am I digging deep enough? haunt our writing process, and we seek direction. In this workshop, we will begin each day with a meditation to help 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 chaos, 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. 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 and performer. His work includes poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and he is the recipient of the American Book Award, the Colorado Book Award, and the International Latino Book Award for historical fiction. His work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, C-Span, and NPR’s All Things Considered. Public Radio International hailed his book, Mañana Means Heaven, as one of their top picks of 2013. Hernandez was also named one of sixteen New American Poets by the Poetry Society of America, and he has received accolades and recognition 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. An experience he chronicles in his Documentary Novel, All They Will Call You, the first installment of “The Plane Crash Series,” which he continues to write and research. Hernandez holds a B.A. from Naropa University and an M.F.A. from Bennington College, and he is an Associate Professor with the University of Texas El Paso’s Bilingual M.F.A. in Creative Writing.