Leave all you have learned about the story arc behind and enter a world of writing where word choice rules.

You want to write – for yourself, your family or to publish – but you have trouble capturing and ordering your thoughts. Let Tammy introduce you to the Lyric Essay, where you can start in the middle or at the end or even the beginning, leave white spaces, learn to trust your reader, digress, return, repeat, jump around and still not worry about getting it “wrong.” 

A combination of poetry and prose, memoir and experimentation Lyric Essay is creative nonfiction in a variety of forms using everything from lists to dreams to “perhapsing” to get at the truth of what you want to say. Leave all you have learned about the story arc behind and enter a world of writing where word choice rules. Think of it as a genre where you make your own rules!  We will learn, read examples and write each session. 

What to Expect:  

You will learn to identify a lyric essay as a subgenre of Creative Nonfiction and more be able to name the three main lyric essay forms and write a Braided Essay.  By the time we finish, you will be able to take non-lyric writing and make it sing by applying these Lyric Essay methods!

Tammy Vitale

Tammy Vitale

Tammy Vitale earned a Masters of Arts in Story and Social Change from Goddard College, Plainfield, VT. She is currently finishing a Masters of Fine Arts from Lindenwood University. Writing since 1995, she has studied with, and in a writing group, with Lucille Clifton, with Grace Cavalieri (Maryland Poet Laureate/since 1995), and more recently, with Melissa Sholes Young at St. Mary's College Writing Conference. Tammy was published in several journals before switching to visual arts through 2014; then coming back to writing in 2018.

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