This Creative Nonfiction (CNF) introduction workshop is perfect for anyone interested in telling their stories: the big stories, the small stories, and everything in between.
Adult writers will generate new work over the course of this two-hour guided writing workshop, a part of the Butler MFA Community Workshop series. We will look at examples from writers like Joan Didion, David Sedaris, and James Baldwin, and then talk about where ideas come from. The bulk of this workshop will be spent generating new work. This is a supportive space for adult writers and storytellers of all levels!
Pens and notebooks will be provided for participants. You are also welcome to bring your own materials and/or a writing device like a laptop.
Facilitator John Strauss, a 2022 Butler MFA graduate, is a longtime Indiana journalist currently on the broadcast news faculty at Ball State University. He has also served as creative nonfiction editor for Booth, a Journal, at Butler and is a producer for the "Real Life, Revised" reading series sponsored by Booth, the Butler MFA, WQRT radio and Indiana Humanities. He has a passion for helping people tell the stories of their lives and is working on an anthology of his own stories and essays.
About the Butler MFA Community Workshop Series
The Butler MFA Community Workshop series is a free writing program facilitated by Butler University alumni of the MFA in Creative Writing. These one-off workshops, hosted at partner sites including bookstores, nonprofits, and public libraries in the Greater Indianapolis area, connect adults at all stages of their writing journeys with workshop experiences shaped by graduate-level study. Thanks to a generous gift from the Efroymson Family Fund, alumni from the program's concentrations in Poetry, Creative Nonfiction, and Fiction will guide local writers into creative practice. Each workshop is designed to help participants generate new work, learn new ways of thinking about the craft of writing, and more confidently continue their own writing practices. Learn more about Butler University's Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing by visiting their website.
The Lawrence Branch opened in 1967 on North Franklin Road in a storefront previously occupied by the Lawrence Post Office. It was the first branch to open within an incorporated town in Marion County. Rapid population growth demonstrated the need for a larger, permanent facility to serve the northeast side. A 3.44 acre site was purchased from MSD Lawrence Township for a new 13,500-square-foot library that opened in 1983.
Renovated in 2020, the Lawrence Branch re-opened to changes that maximized access to the Library’s services and collections, created engaging and functional spaces for those of all ages, and increased access to new technology. The project also provided group study and tutoring areas, improved lighting, more outlets for charging stations, and updates to the entrance, public restrooms and interior finishes.
