ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author describes the evolution of her own writing practice and the subsequent creation of a craft-based writing workshop dedicated to the exploration of techniques for writing about – or alongside, next to, or near – film, video, still images, sound, and other media forms. Moving beyond the conventions of scholarly writing, the course explores forms that have been variously dubbed creative nonfiction, the hybrid essay, memoir, the fourth genre, the lyric essay, the video essay, and poetic or vernacular criticism; and it considers writers who have contributed often stunning examples to the form. The writing prompts are very open and there is time devoted to writing in every class session, as well as to work shopping anything produced. None of the work is graded, and everyone in the class is expected to participate in the critique process.
