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Techniques for developing voice and first-person character.
There’s a fine line between who you are in life and who you are on the page. Personal essays usually fail when the first-person narrator seems only interested in his or her self and experiences. They thrive when the “I” is self-aware, flawed, curious, generous, a little odd, and able to laugh at “myself.” Writer in Residence David Giffels will offer techniques and examples for developing voice and first-person character, with plenty of time for your questions.
About the William N. Skirball Writers' Center's Writer in Residence, 2018-2019
David Giffels’s latest memoir, Furnishing Eternity: A Father, a Son, a Coffin, and a Measure of Life, was praised by the New York Times Book Review as “tender, witty and ... painstakingly and subtly wrought,” and by Kirkus Reviews as “a heartfelt memoir about the connection between a father and son.” It was a January 2018 Book of the Month pick by Amazon and Powell’s Books and a New York Times Book Review “Editors’ Choice.”
His previous books include The Hard Way on Purpose: Essays and Dispatches From the Rust Belt, and the memoir All the Way Home, winner of the Ohioana Book Award. He is the coauthor, with Jade Dellinger, of the rock biography Are We Not Men? We Are Devo! and, with Steve Love, Wheels of Fortune: The Story of Rubber in Akron.
A former Akron Beacon Journal columnist, his writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Parade, the Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Grantland, Redbook, and many other publications. He also was a writer for the MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head.
He is an associate professor of English at the University of Akron, where he teaches creative nonfiction in the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program.
TAGS: | Writing |
The City of South Euclid will conduct a resurfacing project on South Green Road between Mayfield Road and Cedar Road that we anticipate will result in travel delays. The resurfacing project is expected to begin Monday, April 3, 2023, and continue through late fall. During that time, we encourage all visitors to the South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch of Cuyahoga County Public Library to plan accordingly and allow themselves ample travel time. The South Euclid-Lyndhurst Branch will remain open for normal hours of operation during construction.
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