Cooper Street Workshop: Writing Past What You Know: Strategies for Creative Research

April 17 | May 1 | May 15

This is a sequence of three virtual workshops held on Zoom on April 17, May 1, and May 15, from 6-8pm EST. 

Whether you’re writing fiction, nonfiction, or poetry, you’ve probably had the experience of bumping up against a gap in your memories or your knowledge–and in this workshop, we’ll experiment with lots of different methods for creative research to help you deepen your scenes, enrich your characterization and imagery, and build an engrossing world for your readers. We’ll learn about field methods, including interviews and observation, and methods for research into history and the sciences. Each writer will propose a project, such as an article or essay, a poem or sequence of poems, or a scene or chapter in a memoir or novel, and across three course meetings, writers will conduct research, draft, and share their work.

COST: $120 General, $30 Camden residents & Rutgers-Camden students

About the Instructor: 

Nancy Reddy is the author of the poetry collections Pocket Universe and Double Jinx and co-editor of The Long Devotion: Poets Writing Motherhood. Her first book of narrative nonfiction, The Good Mother Myth, is forthcoming with St. Martin’s Press in spring 2025. Her essays have appeared in Slate, Poets & Writers, Romper, The Millions, and elsewhere. The recipient of grants from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Sustainable Arts Foundation, she teaches writing at Stockton University. She writes the newsletter Write More, Be Less Careful.