Class Description

Writing obituaries is an excellent exercise in learning to craft a concise narrative arc out of a vast and messy amount of information - aka an entire life. It is the equivalent of writing a novel synopsis, except for a human being. Writing obits is a great creative practice to help you quickly understand a character and figure out what is important to them. But on a more personal level, writing obituaries can also be a different twist on your own creative goal-setting. In this class, we will be learning about the obituary form, its conventions and how to bend the rules, and then using those tools to write our OWN obituaries. Call it a Stoic New Years Resolution, or maybe a goth five-year plan. How do you want to be remembered, and how close is that vision to how you are actually, currently living your life? EDEN ROBINS is the author of the novels Remember You Will Die, which was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Award and the Massachusetts Book Awards, When Franny Stands Up, and the forthcoming Don't Cross Mo Ellery (co-written under the pseudonym Birdie Horne). She won an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature in 2023 and writes essays for Slate, USA Today, LA Review of Books, and more.