I teach a series of online workshops on the art of memoir and the personal essay. All times listed below are Eastern Standard Time, participants from all over the world are welcome. Contact me for information on upcoming classes.
PENTIMENTO: The Art of Writing Personal Nonfiction and Autofiction Fall 2023
Session I: Sundays, October 29-November 19, 11:30 AM-2 PM ET
Session II: Sundays, November 26-December 17, 11:30 AM-2 PM ET
Four weeks: $600
Eight weeks: $1000
“Old paint on a canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines.” So wrote Lillian Hellman in the opening of her memoir Pentimento. At its essence, personal storytelling is pentimento: we look below the surface of our quotidian lives and examine what lies beneath. This 8-week workshop will include individualized prompts, class feedback, and reading/discussion of masters of the craft such as Joan Didion, Natalia Ginzburg, and James Baldwin. Students will work on projects with the goal of finishing a substantial piece of writing by semester’s end. Topics explored will include the role of memory in fiction and nonfiction writing, and developing plot, structure, and narrative voice.
PENTIMENTO: The Art of Writing Personal Nonfiction Summer 2021
Session II: Mondays, August 9, 16, 23, and 30, 6:00-8:30 PM ET $425
Session I: Mondays, July 12, 19, 26, and August 2, 6:00-8:30 PM ET $425
“Old paint on a canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines.” So wrote Lillian Hellman in the opening of her memoir Pentimento. At its essence, personal storytelling is pentimento: we look below the surface of our quotidian lives and examine what lies beneath. This 8-week workshop will include individualized prompts, class feedback, and reading/discussion of masters of the craft such as Joan Didion, Natalia Ginzburg, and James Baldwin. Students will work on projects with the goal of finishing a substantial piece of writing by semester’s end. Topics explored in this four-week class will be the role of memory, the ethics of writing about others, and narrative voice.
Online Workshops
CRAFTING THE PERSONAL ESSAY - Mondays, April 26, May 3, 10, 17, 24, 6:00pm—8:30 PM ET
As the writer Nora Ephron famously said: “Everything is copy.” We are living through unprecedented times; each day reveals new challenges, new understandings, and new reflections on the world and our place in it. What better time to write some personal essays? The French writer Montaigne first used himself as a character in his literary investigations over four hundred years ago, and since then the personal essay has evolved to include all manner of style and inquiry: some use humor, some are fueled by memory, all are candid reflections of life and society as viewed through the intimate lens of our daily life. In class we’ll use weekly prompts, various writing exercises, and class feedback to develop work-in-progress. Essays by writers as varied as Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Joan Didion, Natalia Ginzburg, Annie Dillard, Nora Ephron, and David Sedaris will be discussed to complement our creative work. The goal will be to have a fully finished essay or more by the end of the five-week workshop. This class is open to anyone with a notebook, and now is a good time to start taking notes. Remember: everything is copy.
CRAFTING THE PERSONAL ESSAY II - Mondays, May 10, 17, 24, and June 3, 6:00-8:30 PM ET
Open to all writers who completed “Crafting the Personal Essay,” this workshop will be a deeper dive into the art of the personal essay. Students will complete essays begun in workshop #1 and/or begin new ones, with an eye toward further development of narrative voice, style, and topic material. Class feedback and discussion of assigned outside reading will supplement the students’ own writing work.
JUMP START YOUR MEMOIR - Saturdays December 5 and 12, 2020, 4-6 PM EST
To be a human is to have a story, and this two-day workshop is designed to take the mystery out of memoir writing and get writers started on their own. Memoir at its essence is a design/build project: it takes the stuff of one’s personal life as the bricks and mortar used to build a story arc. Through a series of prompts, discussion of excerpts from various recently-published memoirs, and exercises in mapping a story arc, we’ll get to designing the blueprint for your own memoir. Students need not have a memoir-in-progress to enroll, but they should expect to leave with one by the workshop’s conclusion.