WRIT42405 - Writing True Crime

Course Description

Some of the most engaging creative nonfiction has been drawn from real-life crime stories. While the “true crime” genre sometimes gets a bad rap, there’s a wealth of literary true crime writing that elevates this form of storytelling to a different level – from Truman Capote’s classic, In Cold Blood, to Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City. Readers hunger for a good true crime tale, and magazines such as the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Atlantic Monthly regularly publish such stories.

In this four-week course, we’ll read and discuss various styles of true crime writing and work to develop your own ideas. Through exercises in class and out, we’ll practice some of the techniques that authors use to bring true crime stories to life.