After taking "Creative Nonfiction" with John McPhee last spring, I am more inspired than ever to pursue a creative nonfiction senior thesis through the English department. Last summer, I interned in Ireland through Princeton’s International Internship Program and spent my weekends exploring the country's 2,500-km coastal trail, the “Wild Atlantic Way.” Established in 2014 as a major marketing initiative, the Wild Atlantic Way is now a famous tourist attraction at the heart of Ireland’s economy. Since it's still so new, however, few books have been published about the Wild Atlantic Way. Having spent ten weeks in Ireland, I am now inspired to write about this natural attraction that, in the age of rampant commercialized tourism, thrives on remaining …show more content…
Most notable among these classes, however, are "Creative Nonfiction" with John McPhee, "Narrative Nonfiction" with Richard Preston, and "Writing About Science" with Michael Lemonick. In each of these three courses, I honed the invaluable skills of finding stories, interviewing subjects, and telling an engaging, ethical, and idiosyncratic narrative. What’s more, my studies with John McPhee, Richard Preston, and Michael Lemonick have aided me immeasurably in writing my favorite type of stories: those rooted in place. All three men routinely use writing to unveil wonders of the natural world—McPhee won a Pulitzer Prize for his famous book on geology, Preston penned the NY Times bestseller, The Wild Trees, and Lemonick, who is now an editor at Scientific American, has written over fifty scientific cover stories for TIME. Each man effortlessly does exactly what I wish to do in my senior thesis: through ink, connecting the everyday stories of the natural world and its inhabitants in a manner that inspires readers to look up and get lost. In McPhee’s class alone, I engaged in hours of fieldwork and research to write about everything from Princeton’s Grinder Lab to Plum Island's Biosafety Level 3 Animal Disease Center, from the rumrunning history of my Long Island hometown to NASA's Golden Voyager Record. Whether trailing scientists into underground laboratories, stumbling down slippery shorelines, or sitting beside John McPhee himself and dissecting my finalized stories, I knew wholeheartedly that there was nothing I would rather spend the rest of my days
Vogler, Christopher. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. 3rd Ed. Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions, 2007.
A graduate of Harvard and the former editor of the Harvard Crimson, Bill McKibben joined the New Yorker in 1982 as a staff writer right out of college. His parents had been writers, and he always thought he would follow in his father’s footsteps as a “newspaper” man. Oblivious as any to environmental predicaments, the course of his career—and life really—changed after writing an extensive piece where he literally tracked down where everything was made in his apartment. Travelling around for this piece introduced him to the “real world,” and in 1987 he left the New Yorker to live in the Adirondack Mountains with his fiancé (“McKibben, Bill”). This is where he wrote his first book, The End of Nature; a book that pushed him into the environmental limelight and provided a basis for all his other works.
Jake watched as Miss Collins’ horse galloped through the trees and out of sight. He made an exasperated snort and slid the Winchester into the rifle scabbard. His duty was to get Duvall, and he’d start by doubling back to the dead or wounded outlaws.
Lilly Barels never thought she would be a writer. As a UCLA graduate who double majored in Neuroscience and Dance, her relationship with creative writing ended in High School. However, almost fifteen years later, in the midst of a broken marriage and lost in the fog of un-fulfillment, Barels discovered the creative channel that would transform her from a high school physics teacher to a soon-to-be published writer. After a passionate and healing love affair with poetry, she was accepted into the MFA program at Antioch Los Angeles. In 2012, Barels received her Masters in Creative Writing with a focus in fiction. Barels just finished her second novel, and she is a regular contributor to Huffington Post.
Authors like Richard Wright, Maxine Kumon, Evelyn White, and Maxine Hong Kingston all bring their own perspectives to their works enabling them to give a unique account of nature and the world around them. This lens through
The speech given by Wendell Phillips at the Cooper Institute in 1861 was one of the more effective speeches in history. The strategies that he utilizes help solidify his opinion and give him leverage to successfully sway the audience to his intellectual viewpoint. His passion for social justice and sharp wit also help give his speech a sharp, precise tone that works very well to iterate his viewpoint. It is his oratory strategies, however; like his brave comparisons, his use of strong figurative language, his connotation-packed diction and his keen incorporation of relevant and intriguing fact, that caused his speech to be so powerful and effective.
Honey, this has been the longest year of my life, life here is absolutely terrible. It’s only been a year since I have been ranked to Specialist E-7 and sent to Verdun and it has been nothing but pure chaos. As of Last week the 21st of February at 7:12 AM the first shot from a German Krupp landed at Verdun. Lifting up your head you can only see bullets flying everywhere nonstop, it’s a constant battle for land and to weaken the oppositions army. We were told to stay low until ordered to fire, but then our Commanding Officer almost forced us into charging into the Krauts Trenches. Luckily they chose to send a different divisions to risk their lives, God bless their souls. Though since they charged we got bombarded with hundreds of shells the next few days. Disease ran rapid as well, such as Trench Foot it has been a major disease here, my friend Private John Huberts shot himself in his foot after getting this disease, he’s been sent back to Dijon to be treated ever since I haven’t heard from him since. The mud is the second worst part of these trenches, though the constant Rats running around definitely take the cake, every night being woken up from these rats running across you is infuriating for the most part. Also these rats have been eating all our food supply leaving many to starve in the trenches.
Blood here and blood there! Shots are being fired from every direction and screams begin to emerge from deep within the forest. They become louder and louder and seem to come closer with every step taken. Then there is an eerie silence and as everything seems to calm down, a grenade goes off in the distance. Does this seem real? Could this be real? The way war is portrayed in movies is not always the honest truth. Most of the times the way war is depicted very action packed and heroic. Although this is true in some cases, there are sides of war that some do not see. There are days in war where nothing extremely dangerous happens. There are also sides of soldiers, emotionally, that one does not see. In the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, war and the soldiers are portrayed in way that is rarely seen. The same can be said for a poem by Wilfred Owen titled Dulce et Decorum Est. O'Brien and Owen both portray the reality of war, however O'Brien goes deeper into the truth behind the reality or war.
Famous for being an influential, key author in American literature, Jack London’s literary works resemble an accurate depiction of the rigid setting and reality of nature that reflects his own adventures in the Yukon. Because of his naturalistic ideals, the audience is able to examine the beliefs of Darwin and how it plays an important role in survival. Thus, London takes another step into the genre of adventure stories that drive him toward his ultimate success.
In the realm of modern literature, a multitude of texts have produced a “thicket of information”(Goldsmith, “Uncreative writing” 1). In this “thicket”, all works seemingly blend together into one jumbled-up, problematic mess. To cut through this jungle of mundaneness, writers aspire to fabricate what they perceive as “creative” literature. There are even guides to doing this; though most are filled with cliché terms and phrases such as: explorer, ground-breaker, and going where no one has gone before(8). But are they all missing the point? Kenneth Goldsmith, author of uncreative writing and professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks so. He argues that the current literary world is plagued by the need to be unique. This need
The day has come. The day I've feared but tried so hard not to. Two men grab me by the arms and lead outside to the blinding sunlight, reluctantly. My tattered shoes scrape along the rocky sand of the camp, everyones watching me now. They all know what's happening and feel sorry for me, except for a smug figure in the distance, obviously Sergeant Hanley. My eyes dart helplessly around the camp, I see the firing squad and a lump swells in my throat. Then I see Tommo, and remember my promise to him.
and Other Greats : Lessons from the All-star Writer's Workshop. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. Print.
Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild has caught many people’s attention. Krakauer has received countless letters with impressions of Chris McCandless. Readers all over had either similar or incompatible notions with the author. Some concluded Chris was heroic and others, on the other hand, thought he was ludicrous and impetuous. Chris’s adventure into the wild ended in a sorrowful way. His decisions before and during his adventure weren’t the most premeditated decisions but he didn't appear unrepentant. Chris was heroic and brave. There is no one deranged enough to pursue the exact same choices Chris did, which makes him unique. Also one can criticize Chris or Chris’s choices. Chris was a grown and intelligent man who graduated college with honors. He was more than capable to make his own decisions. Therefore,
I grew up on the waterfront of the Columbia River. The quaint, picturesque town of Kalama Washington was my hometown from before I can remember. The damp small town emulated a coastal environment, complete with heavy rainfall and dim daytimes. Tired, worn down buildings clad in paint chipped walls and climbing ivy dot the streets and hills. Scenic post-card worthy views of the river stretch out before wide front windows. Tourists stampede through musty antique shops and 50’s themed diners, breathing in the retro town in all its vintage glory; only to discard its significance once entering the freeway. Umbrella carrying locals paint their aging homes pastel shades to combat the grey, gloomy veil blanketing the town. Everyone living in Kalama
attire stood up and with her little boy in tow, took a deep breath and