What is this idea of “self?” How do we define it and in what ways can we make our own voice apparent? Anyone can write a story, but where do you as the author exist on page? Throughout the entirety of your English career, you might’ve heard the term: standard-American English repeated constantly; driving you to continuously perfect the lexicon that you’ve so carefully created for yourself. But what if your biggest weakness was actually your greatest strength? In this course, we will be embracing the idea of individuality—breaking down any previous assumptions that you might’ve learned about writing and English. Here, we will be focusing on the idea of self; embracing the aspects of your own identity (your unique linguistic background, culture, gender, socio-economic status, etc.) that defines who you are as an individual today. In this course, we will be reading numerous texts from authors of many diverse backgrounds, using their work as a parallel to our own writing. The purpose of this course is to not only to introduce you to the foundations of creative writing, but to help you cultivate your own unique writing style and voice as well.