View the archive of my two-hour class and discover the Five Things I’ve Learned about writing and reading great non-fiction.
I’m an author, an analyst, and — currently — a Senior Fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. But first, and always, I am a reporter. I write long-format narratives, mainly about war and the politics of conflict.
I’m a former Guggenheim Fellow, and in 2020 I was awarded the Black Dodd Prize, the American Academy of Arts and Letters highest prize in Non-Fiction. My award-winning book, The Morning They Came For Us: Dispatches from Syria, has been translated into 30 languages. I’ve written seven other books on war and conflict, served as the Middle East Editor at Newsweek reporting mainly on human rights abuses and investigating war crimes, and been a frequent writer for The New York Times, the New York Review of Books, Harpers, Granta and The Guardian.
Some of the greatest forms of literature come in the form of narrative nonfiction – in particular memoir and essay. I look forward to leading you through five things I’ve learned about this form.
In this live, two-hour class, I’ll talk about the essential role that great non-fiction narrative plays in shaping readers’ and writers’ understanding of the world. I’ll also share the most storytelling techniques I’ve found most useful in my own work: I’ll talk about the best ways to interview sources (including family members and voices from the past), and address each of the essential components of great narrative: construction, timing, research, pace, dialogue, and recall.
We’ll also talk specifically about memoir — about how to construct a compelling and successful narrative that shares the substance of your own life and what we all can learn from specific techniques of great writers including Joan Didion, James Baldwin, Barbara Skelton, Lillian Hellman. Together, we’ll look at thematic memoirs such as Andrew Solomon’s The Noonday Demon, Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club and Lit; and also at some populist nonfiction, including Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. (I’ll share specific readings I’ll reference in this class in advance with you via email closer to the time of our live session.)
If you’re a writer, my aim is that when this class concludes you’ll be better equipped to make your non-fiction as successful as you want it to be. If you’re a reader, I hope all we share together will increase your continuing appreciation and enjoyment of great, essential writing.
I hope you’ll join me.
Janine di Giovanni is a multi-award winning journalist and author, and co-founder and co-director of The Reckoning Project: Ukraine Testifies, a transitional justice organization that trains researchers in Ukraine to collect testimonies that can be used in court.
Janine was a war reporter for nearly three decades, from the first Palestinian intifada in the early 1990s to the siege of Sarajevo; the Rwandan genocide; the brutal wars in Sierra Leone, Somalia, Ivory Coast and Liberia to Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan. She reported extensively in Iraq pre and post invasion, the Arab Spring, and finally Syria. Her field work for her most recent book took her to Gaza, Iraq, Egypt and Syria. In 2020, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded her their highest non fiction prize, the Blake Dodd. Janine served as a Senior Fellow and Professor at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs from 2018-2022. In 2016, CNN made a short video about her life and work when the International Women’s’ Media Foundation gave her their prestigious Courage in Journalism Prize.
Janine’s latest book, The Vanishing: The Twilight of Christianity in the Middle East, was published in 2022 and shortlisted for the Moore Prize for Human Rights, as well as being presented to His Holiness, Pope Francis, in Rome in March 2022. Her previous book, The Morning they Came for Us: Dispatches from Syria was translated into 28 languages and was a finalist for the Helen Bernstein New York Public Library Award for Excellence in Journalism.
As an analyst, Janine has written governmental white papers and been a Senior Consultant for projects for the UN Refugee Agency; the UN Democracy Fund; The Shattuck Center on Conflict, Negotiation and Recover; the International Refugee Commission. She is an International Board Member of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, and she is also an advisor on strategic communications.
She was a long-time Senior Foreign Correspondent for The Times of London and a Contributing Editor for Vanity Fair. She now writes for the New York Times; The Washington Post; The Guardian; The New York Review of Books; Harpers; The Atlantic; Foreign Affairs and many other publications.
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