In an entry from October 25, 1920, Virginia Woolf described the feeling of writing in her diary: “Like a lantern stood in the middle of a field my light goes up in darkness.” Woolf's diary was a respite from public life, but it was also a self-conscious literary production. She began journaling the same year that The Voyage Out was published, and she liked to muse about how the public would one day receive her diary, which became a sprawling document of her writing life.

In this class we will investigate the diary form and conceptualize a space between “public” and “private” writing. We will look at notable and formally inventive diaries and journals by artists and writers including Woolf, Bashō, Sei Shōnagon, Jack Whitten, Ted Berrigan, Joanne Kyger, and Hervé Guibert. We will read books that have a diaristic feel or backdrop including Bernadette Mayer’s Memory, Hannah Weiner’s The Fast, and Annie Ernaux's A Simple Passion. We will discuss techniques for self-recording. We will record the events, locales, dramas, and banalities of our lives in detail, and transform those private records into poetry and prose for possible public(s). Class sessions will consist of prompted free-writes, reading discussions, and optional sharing. This class is open to writers of all levels. No journaling experience is necessary.

This class will be held in-person at the Abrons Arts Center.