Writing Workshops

The Art of the Diary with Daniel Saldaña París

$175

2 sessions

In stock

Saturday & Sunday 12:00 pm EDT - 3:00 pm EDT September 20 to September 21, 2025

Online via Zoom

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The personal journal is the most democratic literary genre: anyone can keep a diary, and many people do, regardless of their trade, at one time or another in their lives. In the personal diary, art and daily life coincide and become indistinguishable: it is avant-garde shyness!

A hybrid and versatile genre, the diary can incorporate autobiographical writing, fiction, literary criticism, travel chronicles, and even drawings. It is also a reflection on one’s own style and an exercise in writing itself. In this course, we will review excerpts of personal diaries written by different authors and comment on them collectively, understanding the practice of journaling as a private literary workshop. We will also write and share our own entries based on specific prompts. As with any other genre, the more we read what has been written before, the more tools we will have to write our own journals, understand the possibilities of the genre, and learn how to apply these tools to writing projects in any genre.

Course Outline:

  • First Session:
    • The Personal Diary: defining an impossible genre with a brief historical account from Henri-Frédéric Amiel up to the autofiction boom.
    • Unfolding Personalities: the diary and the third person
    • The Diary of a Body: Katherine Mansfield
    • The End of a Diary: Maurice Blanchot and Sarah Manguso
    • The Diary and the Quotidian: Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Georges Perec
    • Writing prompts and commentary
  • Second Session:
    • Queer Diaries: Patricia Highsmith, Anaïs Nin, John Cheever, André Gide
    • Diaries and Failure: Cesare Pavese, Franz Kafka, Aleister Crowley
    • The Diary as a Posthumous Genre: Sylvia Plath, Alejandra Pizarnik, José Donoso
    • Fictional Diaries: Mircea Cărtărescu, Jazmina Barrera, J.M. Coetzee, Ricardo Piglia
    • Writing prompts and commentary

Level: Intermediate

This course will be held online via Zoom.

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Led by

  • © Fondation Jan Michalski, Tonatiuh Ambrosetti_WEB - Daniel Saldaña París

    Daniel Saldaña París

    Daniel Saldaña París

    Daniel Saldaña París is an essayist and novelist based in Mexico City. He is the author of the novels Among Strange Victims, Ramifications, and The Dance and the Fire, as well as the essay collection Planes Flying Over a Monster. Winner of the 2020 Eccles Center & Hay Festival Writers Award, he was a finalist for the 2021 Herralde Prize in Spain, and a 2022-2023 Cullman Center Fellow at the New York Public Library. In 2017, the Hay Festival included him in Bogota39, a list of the best Latin American Writers under 40.

About this series

Writing Workshops

We strive to make our classes the most inviting and rewarding available, offering an intimate environment to study with award-winning, world-class writers. Each class is specially designed by the instructor, so whether you’re a fledgling writer or an MFA graduate polishing your novel, you’ll find a perfect fit here.

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