ONLINE: Spring 2023 Session Forming Now!

Memoir: Craft and Creation

There are a lot of misconceptions about memoir-writing: that it’s self-indulgent, that only famous people write memoirs, or that you need to be older to reflect on life experiences. But many of the best-known memoirs in recent years were by new writers with little name recognition, writing about their lives in a way that is both generous and healing.

In this workshop, which is open to writers of all ages and levels of experience, we will look at some of the thornier aspects of memoir-writing, like:

What’s the difference between memoir and autobiography?

How do I write about people who are still alive and may object to what I’ve written?

How do I take material from my journal/diary and make it compelling for other readers?

How close to actual events do I have to stay when writing, or is ‘truth’ in art the same as truth in life?

Memoir needn’t be book-length. Personal essays also fall into the category—like those of Joan Didion and David Sedaris. So if you’re new to the form, want to transform your journaling into a narrative, or if you are already working on a full-length manuscript, you will find a space in this memoir workshop.

Over six weeks, for 2 hours on a weekday evening in spring 2023, we’ll examine the work of published memoirists and complete writing prompts to spark imagination, but most importantly, we will workshop individual participants’ writing.

Format: While this is not a lecture-based workshop, each week’s material will revolve around a talking point/theme. For example:

Week One: What is a memoir? How does it differ from seemingly similar forms of writing like autobiography and journaling? 

Week Two: Origin Stories, or How to Begin? What kind of scope should your work take? Questions of POV, tense, and experimental approaches to narrative.

Week Three: Talking it Out: Dialogue in Memoir. How does this differ from the largely invented dialogue of fiction?

Week Four: Character in Memoir: How to treat living people we are writing about. Antagonists, internal conflicts vs external conflicts in memoir. 

Week Five: Suffering vs Survival. What’s worth putting on the page? Distance from the text and from the experience. How to faithfully recreate settings and events.

Week Six: Research vs. Exploration. Strategies for Revision. A bit on self-editing, gathering feedback, and steps towards completing longer works beyond the scope of this workshop.

Each week will have an at-home (short) writing prompt that will be relevant to the week’s theme, along with some reading from a published memoir/personal essay. But foremost, participants will have the opportunity to pass around personal written work (essay, memoir). 

You needn’t have started on any memoir to participate. For you, this will be a good place to explore the genre, hone some ideas, and hopefully put words on paper – offering you an opportunity to get moving on your project. 

If you are already writing a manuscript, you will find many perceptive minds to give you feedback on your pages. 

All in all, there will be plenty to keep us busy.

Fee: 140 Euro payable before the first session.

(Exact day of the week and time to be determined based on the needs of the participants)

I am open to any questions you may have.

* Limited to eight participants.

About the facilitator: in addition to having a deep interest in the form, I bring the experience of having worked in the office of the Executive Editor of Doubleday, where we shepherded works by some of America’s best-known memoirists to publication — writers like Lucy Grealy, Elizabeth Wurtzel, and Patti Smith. A little more about me.