With the rise of documentaries, in theaters, in press coverage, in the public consciousness, I'm taking up the nonfiction mantle myself to teach a course this fall on Wednesday nights at New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies on the "Contemporary Documentary." I'm planning to make the course less a history lesson and more an examination of the filmmaking practices and various aesthetic strategies that have gone into the best (primarily American) documentaries, from "Titticut Follies" to "The Thin Blue Line," "Crumb" to "Grizzly Man," "Sherman's March" to "Tarnation."

I'm also enlisting the help of some real live documentary filmmakers to come in and offer advice to the next generation of nonfiction artists. Filmmaker and blogger Doug Block, of The D-Word and "51 Birch Street" fame, is already on tap to talk about the challenges of crafting the personal documentary on Oct. 10.

If you're interested in the class or know someone who might be, please direct them to the link. Classes run Sept. 26-Dec 19.