UCI adds literary journalism program

Marisa O’Neil

Barry Siegel, a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the Los Angeles

Times, will head a new program at UC Irvine that focuses on literary

journalism.

The new major, a part of the English department in the School of

Humanities, will train students in a form of writing that has long

been on the fringes of the media. Siegel said that the title of an

anthology he wrote, “Shades of Gray,” best describes the writing

genre, which is sometimes hard to define.

“It can be anything,” he said. “That’ll be what I’m trying to

refine. To me, it means storytelling. What I try to do is tell

nonfiction short stories. This is kind of nonfiction prose that

attempts to use the methods of the finest fiction.”

Siegel said that he wasn’t looking for another job in addition to

his reporting duties, but was drawn to the program when members of

the school’s English department approached him, offering him the

position.

“I don’t think I would have thought about doing this anywhere

else,” he said. “But since this is UC Irvine, which has such a great,

deserved reputation in creative writing, I wanted to be a part of

it.”

The program is the first of its kind in the UC system.

UC Irvine does not have a regular journalism program that focuses

on print or broadcast writing. John Hollowell, the school’s director

of English composition, said the new literary journalism program will

take its place next to literature, creative writing and literary

theory in the English department.

“We asked ourselves if we could do a traditional journalism

program, but decided it was not right for us,” Hollowell said. “We

wanted something that would look at nonfiction prose in a historical

perspective.”

Students majoring in literary journalism will read works by

writers like Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion and will tackle their own

literary journalism pieces. Hollowell said classes for the next two

semesters will focus on crime writing, including a true crime class

taught by Siegel and a course on writing about murders -- from the

17th century to current works like Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.”

Future semesters may include classes about science or outdoors

feature stories.

Hollowell said that some students who took literary journalism

classes when they showed up on the school’s course offerings list the

past couple semesters, have gone on to do internships at area

newspapers and television stations.

However, he said that the literary journalism program is not meant

to churn out regular newspaper reporters, who are more likely to

cover city council meetings for their first job than sensational

murder cases.

“They will have to do some ground work if they want to work as

reporters,” he said. “Maybe some people will have literary

aspirations. We concede that some won’t go into literary journalism

at all. Some might go into the corporate world, doing technical

writing or working as advertising copywriters.”

Siegel said that students hoping to opt out of a traditional

English major by going the literary journalism route will be out of

luck. Students will still be required to take English and history

courses.

“I got one call from a grad student who was all excited to read

Joan Didion instead of Chaucer,” he said. “I told her: ‘Well, you’ll

still have to read that, too.’”

Siegel, who won a Pulitzer last year for his Los Angeles Times

feature story about a Utah man facing a murder sentence in the

accidental death of his son, intends to keep working and writing for

the newspaper while he teaches.

He has previously served as a lecturer for USC journalism classes,

but this is the first time he will serve a staff position.