CWP | Writer as Witness

2013 Writer as Witness Colloquium

Biss, Notes from No Man's Land

Featuring: Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays
by Eula Biss

Where/When: Bender Arena on Tuesday, September 3, 8:00 p.m.

On behalf of the Department of Literature and the College Writing Program, we welcome you to American University. To set the stage for your first year here at AU, we have chosen a book that we call our "community text" for you to read before you arrive in August. You and your classmates will discuss the book and write about it in your College Writing or Honors English class. The College Writing Program and the Campus Store will also sponsor an essay contest to honor the best writing inspired by the community text.

We're delighted to announce this year's choice: Eula Biss' Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays. We will bring Biss to campus this fall for the sixteenth annual Writer as Witness Colloquium on Tuesday, September 3, at 8:00 p.m. in Bender Arena. She will address the American University community and meet with students and faculty to discuss the book.

Eula Biss

In Notes from No Man's Land, Biss examines race in America through prose that is simultaneously spare and rich, personal and incisive. A Booklist starred review notes: "Biss calls our attention to things so intrinsic to our lives that they have become invisible, such as telephone poles and our assumptions about race...Matters of race, sense of self, and belonging involve everyone, and Biss' crossing-the-line perspective will provoke fresh analysis of our fears and expectations.

Biss holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and teaches nonfiction writing at Northwestern University. Her essays have appeared in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, the Believer, and Harper's. Notes from No Man's Land won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism and winner of the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize.


See full Writer as Witness 2013 Announcement.

AU Campus Store

AU Library Resources for
Notes from No Man's Land

Please send questions or comments to:
cwp@american.edu

 

Previous Writer as Witness Texts

2012: The End of Country, by Seamus McGraw.

2011: The Good Soldiers, by David Finkel

2010: The Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans Subvert an Unfair Economy, by Lisa Dodson

2009: True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, by Farhad Manjoo

2008: The Devil's Highway, by Luis Alberto Urrea

2007: The Ponds of Kalambayi, by Mike Tidwell

2006: Love in the Driest Season, by Neely Tucker

2005: Fragments of Grace, by Pamela Constable

2004: Newjack, by Ted Conover

2003: First They Killed My Father, by Loung Ung

2002: Savage Inequalities, by Jonathan Kozol

2001: Bad Land, by Jonathan Raban

2000: Almost a Woman, by Esmeralda Santiago

1999: My Own Country, by Abraham Verghese

1998: There Are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz

WRITER AS WITNESS
STUDENT ESSAY COMPETITION

2012 Writer as Witness Contest Winning Essay

Top Prize: $200
Runners-Up Prizes: Gift cards from AU Campus Store

Once you’ve read Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays and have heard Eula Biss speak on Tuesday, September 3rd, you’ll have the opportunity to contribute your voice to the Writer as Witness Program. 

You are invited to submit your analysis, research essay, memoir, or other essay genre for our annual writing competition. Deadline and submission details will be announced mid-semester.

Open to all College Writing & Honors English students. Sponsored by the College Writing Program and AU Campus Store.

For more information please contact Mary Switalski:
meswitalski@gmail.com

 

AU Store Discount
& Library Resources

AU Campus Store

AU Library Resources for
Notes from No Man's Land

The AU Campus Store is offering Notes from No Man's Land at a discount. Copies will also be available for purchase at the Campus Store during New Student Orientations, when you’ll have your first opportunity to talk with classmates about Notes from No Man's Land.