The Art of the Interview Workshop with E.B. Bartels

If you’re writing nonfiction, you will have to do interviews. No way around it! From journalism to memoir, if you’re writing about the real world, you’re going to have to talk to people. In this class, we will discuss the best practices for doing interviews: from the technical logistics (transcription software, recording devices) to getting people to open up (awkward silences are your best friend) to how to not cringe when you hear a recording of your own voice (it’s really hard). We will also talk about different strategies for doing interviews that will become part of a larger researched work (like an essay or a book) vs. standalone interviews (such as a conversation with an author about their new book). You’ll even get the chance to apply these new skills in real time by interviewing your classmates!

If you’re writing nonfiction, you will have to do interviews. No way around it! From journalism to memoir, if you’re writing about the real world, you’re going to have to talk to people. In this class, we will discuss the best practices for doing interviews: from the technical logistics (transcription software, recording devices) to getting people to open up (awkward silences are your best friend) to how to not cringe when you hear a recording of your own voice (it’s really hard). We will also talk about different strategies for doing interviews that will become part of a larger researched work (like an essay or a book) vs. standalone interviews (such as a conversation with an author about their new book). You’ll even get the chance to apply these new skills in real time by interviewing your classmates!

E.B. Bartels is a writer, editor, and teacher from Massachusetts. She holds a BA in Russian from Wellesley College and an MFA in creative nonfiction from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Her nonfiction has appeared in Catapult, Electric Literature, The Believer Logger, The Rumpus, The Millions, The Toast, The Butter, Entropy, FullStop, Ploughshares online, and the anthology The Places We’ve Been: Field Reports from Travelers Under 35, among others. She is a regular performer in Mortified, and her flash nonfiction piece “Vulnerable” was the winner of the 2018 Eldridge Tide & Pilot Book Story Contest. She also writes the monthly column Non-Fiction by Non-Men for Fiction Advocate, in which she interviews women and non-binary people who write nonfiction. Good Grief: On Loving Pets, Here and Hereafter, E.B.’s narrative nonfiction book about the world of loving and losing animals, exploring the singular nature of our bonds with our companion animals, and how best to grieve for them once they’ve passed away, is forthcoming from Mariner Books on August 2, 2022. E.B. is an instructor at the creative writing center GrubStreet, the Wellesley Writes It editor for Wellesley Underground, and an on-again-off-again bookseller at Newtonville Books. In addition to writing, E.B. also works as a freelance editor, a manuscript consultant, a writing coach, a tutor, and a senior editorial writer in the communications and public affairs department at Wellesley College. She lives in the Boston area with her husband, Richie, and their many pets.