Writing with Research

Writing with Research is a 6-week-long workshop with award-winning writer and researcher Lauren Markham. The class will take place on Zoom on Wednesdays from November 6 until December 18 from 5 to 7 p.m. PST. Each participant will be able to submit one (1) piece of writing for workshop and receive written feedback from the instructor.

So much of what falls under the umbrella of “creative nonfiction”—essays, memoir, reportage—relies on research: going to sources outside of ourselves to help bring our work to life. All the same, accumulated research can be unwieldy and threaten to bog down the text. In this course, we will attend to the questions of how we transform the fruits of our research into vivid, meaningful prose. How do we incorporate our research while keeping air in the text, without defaulting to or devolving into overly dutiful or academic-style writing? Through assigned readings, in-class exercises, large- and small-group discussions, and workshopping of participants’ prose, this class will serve as the container for a deep inquiry into the art and craft of fact-based creative work.

Lauren Markham is a writer based in California whose work regularly appears in outlets such as Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and VQR, where she is a contributing editor. She is the author of the award-winning The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life and the critically acclaimed A Map of Future Ruins: On Borders and Belonging. Her third book, Immemorial, will be published by Transit Books in 2025. 

This workshop is $480. Registration closes on November 2 at 11:59 p.m. PST. For more information, please contact Lindsay Wright at workshops@lareviewofbooks.org.