MEM 112 A — Memoir Club: A Guided Writing Group
Quarter: Fall
Instructor(s): John W. Evans
Date(s): Sep 22—Dec 1
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Tuesdays
Class Meeting Time: 5:30—8:00 pm (PT)
Please Note: No class on November 24
Tuition: $1040
Refund Deadline: Sep 24
Unit(s): 2
Enrollment Limit: 18
Status: Registration opens Aug 17, 8:30 am (PT)
Quarter: Fall
Day: Tuesdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 5:30—8:00 pm (PT)
Date(s): Sep 22—Dec 1
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $1040
Refund Deadline: Sep 24
Instructor(s): John W. Evans
Enrollment Limit: 18
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Registration opens Aug 17, 8:30 am (PT)
Please Note: No class on November 24
This course offers a supportive, structured space to work on a memoir or personal essays within an ongoing writing group spanning the academic year. Weekly meetings with the same cohort and instructor allow students to build close relationships with engaged readers and receive consistent support as they dive deeper into their work. Some writers will progress sequentially toward a book-length manuscript, while others focus on stand-alone pieces. Wherever you are in a project, this group provides space for exploration and discovery. Oral peer feedback will be central, fostering a rigorous, attentive community while students preserve time for their own writing. Everyone will receive detailed written comments from the instructor on one submission of up to 3,000 words. Above all, this course supports those seeking to make writing a more consistent and central part of their lives.
This is the first course in our Memoir Club series. The second course of the series will be offered in Winter Quarter 2027, and the third course in Spring Quarter 2027. Completing each course guarantees priority registration in the following quarter. Each course can be taken independently as well.
JOHN W. EVANS
Critical-Creative Studies Initiative Lecturer, Department of English, Stanford
John W. Evans is the author of four books. His latest, The Fight Journal, received the Rattle Prize. Should I Still Wish: A Memoir was selected for the American Lives series. Young Widower: A Memoir received the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize and a Foreword INDIES award. His work has appeared in Slate, The Missouri Review, Boston Review, Zyzzyva, Poets & Writers, and The Best American Essays. He was a Jones Lecturer and Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Textbooks for this course:
There are no required textbooks; however, some fee-based online readings may be assigned.