Writing a Nonfiction Book, from Inspiration to Publication with TJ Stiles (9/29 – 10/13)

Instructor: TJ Stiles
Contact: tjstiles@earthlink.net
Number of sessions: 4
Meeting time: Thursday nights, 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm
Dates: Sept. 29 – Oct. 13

Course fee: $295

To register, contact the instructor. All deposits are nonrefundable

Description: In four sessions, a Pulitzer-winning author and veteran of ten years in the publishing industry will discuss the challenges of writing and publishing a long-form nonfiction narrative. In each session, we’ll explore a different aspect of the process—from initial idea to polishing a manuscript to the mechanics of getting published—discussing successful and unsuccessful examples, essays by noted critics, and questions raised by class members concerning their own projects.

We’ll examine how to
• define your project for yourself and a potential publisher
• structure the book
• integrate research into a narrative without stopping it cold
• understand how vivid you can be without slipping into fiction
• refine your style and perfect your storytelling
• draft a book proposal and work with agents and publishers

Students are welcome to ask for feedback on specific pieces of writing or publishing issues (such as framing a book proposal)—though you need not have an ongoing project to take the course

Instructor Bio: T.J. Stiles won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in Biography and 2009 National Book Award for Nonfiction for his most recent book, The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt(Knopf, 2009). His previous book, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won the Ambassador Book Award and the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship. He has reviewed books for the New York Times Book Review, Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle, and served as a consultant for and appeared in two films in the PBS series The American Experience. He worked for ten years in publishing in New York, at Oxford University Press and Ballantine Books. He is currently a Guggenheim fellow.