Every piece of nonfiction prose has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Of course we want the beginning to be inviting, even beguiling, and for the end, we want Closure with a capital “C.” But the pesky part is the middle, and sometimes the most bewildering question we ask about an essay in its early drafts is “How is the middle put together?” This workshop is for nonfiction writers who want to dive into the myriad ways to structure an essay or a memoir with power, momentum, and sustained impact on readers. Whether you are just starting out in writing nonfiction, or have many essays finished in your repertoire, this workshop will focus on questions about form. Writers have many options to arrange their prose, from conventional chronology or narrative, to the more postmodern forms, like the “braided” essay, or a “hybrid” form, in which the point seems to be to scramble conventional order so that the prose moves forward with disparate, contrary styles. No matter what we choose, what we want is the indelible feeling that the writing is moving forward, and a sense that the structure fits the language so powerfully that the reader couldn’t imagine the piece being structured in any other way. Our conversations about your manuscripts will give you a chance to listen to readers describe how they perceived form as the essay moved toward its conclusion. We will achieve this through a combination of workshop review of pieces we bring (short or long), as well as a few exercises to shake up our sense of the possibility in structuring nonfiction. We’ll pay particular attention to questions of order, sequence, suspense, and momentum, and we’ll work to describe and control those features that make the “middle” have its own power and depth. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our week; workshop writing you bring from home.