Craft Seminar: Begin with the Dream with Matthew Gavin Frank
Craft Seminar: Begin with the Dream with Matthew Gavin Frank
1 Session: Saturday, May 9
3:00-4:15pm ET
Matthew Gavin Frank
Matthew Gavin Frank is the author, most recently, of the nonfiction book, Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines, which the writer and editor Michele Filgate called, "One of the best books I've ever read." Frank is also the author of the nonfiction books Flight of the Diamond Smugglers, The Mad Feast, Preparing the Ghost, Pot Farm, and Barolo, as well as the poetry books The Morrow Plots, Warranty in Zulu, and Sagittarius Agitprop. He’s a professor of creative writing in the Masters of Fine Arts Program at Northern Michigan University, where he is also the Nonfiction/Hybrids Editor of the literary magazine, Passages North.
The poet and essayist Alice Notley writes, “I woke up thinking that a dream is like an illuminated manuscript, in which words and letters are enlarged, made calligraphic, highlighted, painted, with stories and symbolic figures in the margins… You might well say that that is what poetry, or essay-writing is—an art form based on telepathy, a sending of complex messages through an almost immaterial presentation (a few words on a page?); or, you might say, that all communication is like that. And isn’t it?”
In this session, we will engage two published flash essays that begin in a dream, and we will discuss ways in which to write from the dreams that consume us. Via a writing prompt, we will practice methods of rescuing the “dream” from mere ephemerality on the page, fostering connections between the dream-world and the “actual” world, in order to best arouse this sort of “telepathic” communication between writer and reader. Participants will engage the writing prompt in real time, and will then share their work with their peers.
Workshop Highlights:
A frank discussion of the interaction between interiority and exteriority in creative nonfiction.
An opportunity to practice writing via an in-class generative prompt.
An opportunity to share your work with your peers and instructor, soliciting feedback on how to expand the piece.
Matthew Gavin Frank is the author of five books of nonfiction, and three books of poetry. His most recent book of nonfiction is Flight of the Diamond Smugglers: A Tale of Pigeons, Obsession, and Greed Along Coastal South Africa (Liveright, 2022), an NPR Best Book of the Year and finalist for the Heartland Booksellers Award in Nonfiction. His next book is Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines, to be published by Pantheon in June 2025.
His other works of nonfiction include The Mad Feast: An Ecstatic Tour Through America’s Food ( Liveright, 2015), selected as a Staff Pick by The Paris Review, a Best Book of 2015 by Ploughshares, The Millions, and Paste Magazine, and featured in The Wall Street Journal, Saveur, and Entertainment Weekly, Preparing the Ghost: An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer (Liveright, 2014), a New York Times Editors' Choice, an NPR Notable Book, and a New Yorker Book to Watch Out For, Pot Farm (The University of Nebraska Press, 2012), and Barolo (The University of Nebraska Press, 2010). His poetry collections are The Morrow Plots (Black Lawrence Press, 2013), Warranty in Zulu (Barrow Street Press, 2010), and Sagittarius Agitprop (Black Lawrence Press, 2009).
His work appears widely in journals and magazines, including The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Guernica, The New Republic, Iowa Review, Salon, Conjunctions, The Believer, The Normal School, The Best Travel Writing anthologies, The Best Food Writing anthologies, The Poetry Foundation, and as Notable selections in The Best American Essays anthologies.
