Starts Thursday September 22nd

 Thursdays 6-8pm (GMT) via Zoom

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Are you working on personal narrative, life writing or memoir?

Looking for a week to explore the self in your work?

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This 10 week course is designed to give you a variety of topics through which you can explore your personal experiences. 

 

This course is designed for you to take each week or join the sessions that most interest you. Open to all skill levels and genres.

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Week 1 September 22nd: Introduction, The Self as Inspiration

In our first week together we will do some initial exercises turning inwards and chatting about and embracing navel gazing as a creative outlet. Exercises will get you thinking about your project, your life, and ways that you can experiment and play!

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Week 2 September 29th: Fiction

This week will look at ways of embedding fiction as a component of memoir. Exploring ways of fictionalizing elements of the personal narrative as well as personification of varying parts of your project.

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Week 3 October 6th: Trauma

This week we will be exploring ways to protect ourselves while writing about trauma. Exercises will get you experimenting with creative tactics that will allow you to create space for yourself.

 

Week 4 October 13th: Time and Place

This week we will be focusing on the all important parts of a memoir, time and place. We will be looking at different ways we can experiment with both of these and trying out writing exercises that offer unique ways of representing both time and place.

 

Week 5 October 20th: Family

One of the biggest questions when working on memoir is how will my family react? How can I write about family members that are still living? In this week we will explore ways of approaching these questions through various writing exercises and examples.

 

Week 6 October 27th: Pain

Pain can have a variety of meanings and present in our lives in various ways. Physical pain, emotional pain, inherited pain. This week will investigate how we can use our pain as a resource for creative work. We will also explore how we can experiment in the ways we represent it on the page.

 

Week 7 November 3rd: Essay/Critical Writing

This week we will be looking at how we can root personal narrative within a framework of research and essay writing. We will explore the topics that might be linked to your project and will do some writing that blends memoir with more critical/academic writing.

 

Week 8 November 10th: Visuals/Images

What images do we include in our text? Photos? Art? This week will investigate ways of embedding visuals and images with the written word. Come prepared with images you love as we will write with them and in response to them.

 

Week 9 November 17th: Writing about Writing

How can we use writing about writing as a way into our memoir? If we are writers than writing about our experience of writing can ground a story of who we are. This week we will write about our experiences and process of creating text as a way of talking about who we are.

 

Week 10 November 24th: Forms and Structures

In our last workshop of this course we will be experimenting with ways to bring all of your writing together. Exploring different kinds of structures and the ways that these can act as extensions of the writing.

 

Week 11 December 1st: Optional Open Mic

A chance for you to share your work in a supportive and comfortable space.

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