What is so challenging about writing a memoir is that you are asking
yourself to take the charged events of your life and shape them
aesthetically, so they appeal to a reader, a reader who doesn’t know
you and doesn’t necessarily care what happened to you – unless you
can make them. Using the tried and true Writers Studio method, we will
closely examine the work of writers who have been able to turn their
very personal subjective stories into memoirs that are
transcendentally universal. How did writers like Ed Hirsch, Annie
Dillard or Joan Didion create a persona narrator who could tell their
story? The answer, of course, is that successful memoir writers are
able to think of themselves as characters in a story. In this
eight-week course we will dive deeply into the techniques that served
as a handrail for writers dealing with personal trauma. Each week we
will read and emulate a different voice that has used first person to
unlock the emotional power of a story or poem. You know your story.
It’s your story, but you want to familiarize yourself with the tools
that will help you to tell that story in a way that is compelling,
seductive or suspenseful. Often that means learning how to hold the
subject matter out away from one’s self so that you can control the
material, rather than be controlled by it. We will work with fiction,
poetry, and creative non-fiction to find the voice that works for you.
During the workshop, a student will be asked to submit two pages each
week to be critiqued by the teacher and other students with an
opportunity in the final week to submit a longer piece. Note: This
class is open to all current and former Writers Studio students as
well as newcomers to the school. Still have questions? Ask the
community .
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24/01/2020 Last update