Dirk Johnson
by Tom Parisi
The next meeting of NIU Instructor Dirk Johnson’s creative non-fiction writing class will be held Feb. 2. That might not seem extraordinary, but this is: The course officially ended nearly two months ago.
The English 303 class met Tuesday nights last semester at the NIU-Hoffman Estates campus. Johnson, a book author and journalist best known for his award-winning work for the New York Times and Newsweek, led the 11 students as they each worked to complete the first chapter of a prospective book.
“The idea was to encourage each other in their book writing,” says Johnson, who teaches journalism and English courses at NIU.
“Students would take turns reading from what they had written the week before. More often than not, they tended to draw from their own lives, touching on personal and sometimes painful things. The students would critique each other, not only in terms of the writing but also as a kind of support group.
“To my surprise, when the end of the semester came, they didn’t want the class to end,” Johnson adds. “So it didn’t.”
Class members, most of them non-traditional students, including three military veterans, had developed a special camaraderie. To keep the words coming, they have formed a group dubbed Writer’s Block and are planning to meet monthly to exchange ideas, share encouragement and constructive criticism and support each other’s writing goals.
The next meeting will be at Jack O’Brien’s home in Elgin. He first suggested the classmates continue meeting, but isn’t quick to claim full credit for Writer’s Block.
“There were a lot of people who felt we were doing good work and ought to continue,” he says. “We have a fledgling group of the next great American novelists.”
O’Brien is a 55-year-old business owner who is working toward a bachelor’s degree of general studies at NIU. “I’m on the 40-year college plan,” he laughs. “I started in 1971.”
But his real dream, like the dream of some of his classmates, is to write. He’s working on a book loosely based on his family’s history. “It’s kind of a James Michener treatment of the O’Brien clan,” he says. Others are writing on a wide range of diverse topics, such as mental illness, divorce and the experience of war.
Last semester, Debbie Dudek of Elgin wrote the first chapter of a story about a family member. “I never thought I’d write 25 pages,” she says. “It’s amazing how it just comes out.”
She says the experience of reading written passages aloud, and listening to and critiquing others’ work, helped class members bond. “Everybody was supportive,” says Dudek, who hosted the first Writer’s Block meeting. “I’m hoping that the group stays together.”
Johnson is no longer giving out homework assignments, but he intends to be at the group’s February meeting. Writer’s Block lists their former instructor as its “official mentor and muse.”
Johnson is the author of two books, “Biting The Dust: The Wild Ride and Dark Romance of the Rodeo Cowboy and the American West” and “Meth: The Home-Made Menace.” He also is a five-time winner of the New York Times Publisher’s Award and has earned the Best-in-Contest Award from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. His work frequently appears in Chicago magazine.
“Dirk provided a strong role model for us,” O’Brien says. “I think everyone felt he was a very encouraging instructor. He was really there to catch us doing everything right.”
Johnson says he was impressed by the talent in the class. “There were really some quite fascinating personal stories,” he says.
“The dream for these students is to get it published; the goal is to write the book,” he says. “The great sense of bonding comes with sharing their writing along the way.”