All the classic elements of creative nonfiction - strong characterization, scene setting, dramatization, careful attention to language -come together in Mara Gorman's essay.

"Proud Flesh" was a product of a graduate writing workshop Gorman attended at Penn State, where she received an MFA in nonfiction writing.  Gorman began with the desire to describe "the totality of my mother's experience in the hospital."

"When someone gets sick like that, whoever they were before gets magnified.  It changes everything yet it doesn't change who you are.  That's what I really wanted to try and show in this essay." Gorman relied on specific details to bring her mother to life on the page:  "she danced with absolute abandon, hips swaying, smiling, a more sensual being than I have ever seen her in my life, absolutely at home with her body."

At the time she wrote the essay, Gorman was teaching graduate level writing classes and tutoring students.  On the weekends, she would drive home to take care of her mother.  "I didn't have a lot of time to do a lot of writing.  What I did try to do was be very attentive." Gorman kept a journal and jotted down notes whenever she could. "I would have a conversation with my mother, then go into another room and write down exact quotes or essential key words on the back of an envelope to jog my memory later on. Some scenes I didn't need to write down, for instance, when we were in the doctor's office and she was having the bandages removed.  I knew I'd never forget that."

Gorman constructed the essay in a non-linear fashion. "I tend to write in a choppy way, first getting down all the scenes.  Then I go back and glue them together."

A lot of thought went into the language, which is alternately sparse ( "Her hair was caught up in a pink scrunchie and she looked young.") and more elaborate ("I emerged from the shower, soft scrolls of my mother's hair covered the front of my chest, forming gentle brown curlicues across my unscarred breasts."). "When I started graduate school, I only used sparse language to the point of being journalistic.  Then I took a course with Paul West.  He used to say, when you're writing in English, you have so many words to choose from - its almost criminal not to use them.  He would give me back papers and at the bottom there would be this little EKG and he'd say, "You're flatlining and you have to go up and down." At first, it just made me mad.  But then, I realized he was right. He really forced me to take a look and think harder about the language that I use.  This piece is the first one where I really tried to incorporate both of those voices."

During the revision process, Gorman focused on making the language as precise as possible. "This piece did get workshopped.  I also had a reading, so I was really able to polish it up by reading through and crossing out unnecessary words.  I probably worked on it for about ten months."

Can good writing be taught?  I asked Gorman, who has taught creative nonfiction and fiction at Penn State.  "I really do feel that probably 98% of it is learned.  Of course, some people have more natural ability than others do.  There are ways to be a better interviewer, ways to get better facts.  What I think is important for students of writing to know is: You've got to work really hard, and you've got to try to listen; you have to be keyed into what's going on around you."



Stephanie Susnjara