MEM 121 — Essay by Essay: Memoir Workshop
Quarter: Spring
Instructor(s): Monica Wesolowska
Date(s): Mar 31—Jun 2
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Tuesdays
Class Meeting Time: 6:00—8:30 pm (PT)
Tuition: $1000
Refund Deadline: Apr 2
Unit(s): 2
Enrollment Limit: 18
Status: Registration opens Feb 23, 8:30 am (PT)
As writer Anne Lamott famously tells it, in childhood she once overheard her father give this advice to her brother who was struggling to write a school report about birds: "Just take it bird by bird." To paraphrase this advice, aspiring memoirists may find writing personal essays more manageable than a whole book. Essay by essay, a memoir can take shape.
In this course, we’ll explore how to create a successful memoir in essays. We’ll examine examples by Trevor Noah, Jo Ann Beard, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Bernard Cooper, focusing on how each author crafts essays that stand alone yet fit within a larger narrative. How do they avoid redundancy, create suspense, and reach a satisfying climax in each essay and the book as a whole? We’ll also cover core memoir tools—summary, scene, point of view, and tone. Over the quarter, you’ll workshop one essay (up to 5,000 words) and draft an outline for your memoir, leaving with new pages and a plan to proceed—essay by essay—to its end.
MONICA WESOLOWSKA
Author and Editor
Monica Wesolowska is the author of the memoir Holding Silvan: A Brief Life, named a Best Book of 2013 by The Boston Globe and Library Journal, as well as two children's picture books. Her essays and short stories have been published in a wide variety of venues, including The New York Times Modern Love column. She is a former fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and she works one-on-one with clients as an independent editor. Textbooks for this course:
There are no required textbooks; however, some fee-based online readings may be assigned.