The Write Stuff

English professor Jeff Sharlet, who teaches creative nonfiction, knows the genre well. Last year the Washington Post, in its review of Sharlet s Sweet Heaven When I Die, declared that the collection of 13 essays about people and faith "belongs to the tradition of long-form, narrative journalism best exemplified by writers such as Joan Didionjohn McPhee, Norman Mailer...and David Samuels." The professor, who arrived here in 2010 after spending several years at New York University, says the books reception was better than expected. "There isn't much hunger for books of essays these days," he explains. The author of several books and a contributing editor for Harper's Magazine arid Rolling Stone, Sharlet spent part of last fall reporting on the Occupy Wall Street movement in Zuccotti Park in New York City. He helped organize OccupyWriters.com, a site where more than 3,000 writers have submitted pieces about and voiced support for the Occupy movement. Sharlet s students seem unfazed by their teachers prolificacy. "They have confidence and anxiety," he notes, "a good combination for writers." He would, however, like to see them be even more adventurous and escape the campus "bubble" more often. Oh, and one more thing: "They need to get used to receiving more than just one set of revisions."