The Playful Essay

The word “Essay” in French means “to try”; in English it originally meant “an attempt.”  In this 10-week online class, we will write a series of tries or attempts that play with our own personal stories, cultural histories, other writers’ thinking, dreams, questions and puzzles in our lives. These essays might be poetic essays, lyric essays, personal essays, or experiments in prose! The focus will be on writing in response to prompts when we are together, but we will have the goal of finishing three essays (or might they be chapters?) in our weeks together. You will receive feedback in small groups and from your instructor, Perrin Kerns.

Perrin Kerns has been teaching creative writing for over 30 years. For many of those years, she served as the Director of Writing at Marylhurst University. More recently she has been teaching literature, creative nonfiction, and digital storytelling at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, Prescott College, PNCA’s MFA, Portland State University, Literary Arts, and Fishtrap. Her own creative work has taken her from the lyric essay to digital storytelling to personal narrative documentaries based on her lyric essays.