Fall Craft Intensive: Matt Ortile
Workshops
$75.00
Description
Editor's Note
How to Write a First-Person Travel Essay: Let the Reader Borrow Your I’s with Matt Ortile
Sunday, November 16
12 PM – 3 PM PT/ 3 PM – 6 PM ET
Online
In this one-day class, students will learn the fundamentals of how to write a first-person travel essay. By reading published contemporary travel articles, we will study the use of the narrative “I” in travel magazine writing, tried-and-true story “formulas,” and basic reporting techniques. In-class discussion of readings and generative exercises will offer students ideas for a travel essay of their own that they can continue to develop after the weekend is over.
For the purposes of this class, we will distinguish between a first-person travel essay and a personal essay about travel: The latter privileges the self, emphasizes the writer’s intellectual and emotional discoveries; the former shifts its focus slightly, prioritizes instead the reader’s immersion in an exciting elsewhere by telling the story of that place—be it the local culture, history, environment, cuisine, or community. More than a matter of semantics, these distinctions can help us as writers 1) find multiple ways to tell a tale; 2) navigate the power dynamics between a journalist and their subject; and 3) sell an article to an editor for publication.
This class is for students who are new to travel writing or those who wish to hone their skills in narrative place-based nonfiction. No prior writing experience is required. Potential authors to be read in and outside of class include: Maggie Shipstead, Gary Shteyngart, Ligaya Mishan, Lauren Collins, Bill Buford, Saki Knafo, Sarah Khan, and others. On both days of the weekend course, we will end with a short Q&A.
Scholarship
The scholarship for this intensive has already been awarded.
BIO: Matt Ortile is the author of the essay collection The Groom Will Keep His Name and the co-editor of the nonfiction anthology Body Language. He is an editor at Condé Nast Traveler, and was previously the executive editor of Catapult magazine and the founding editor of BuzzFeed Philippines. He has written for Esquire, Vogue, Out, Self, BuzzFeed News, and elsewhere; has received fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and MacDowell; and has taught creative writing classes at Kundiman, PEN America, the Center for Fiction, and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. He is a graduate of Vassar College, which means he now lives in Brooklyn.