OWC 203 B — Memoir I: The Powerful Launch
Quarter: Winter
Instructor(s): Rose Whitmore
Date(s): Jan 6—Mar 10
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Grade Restriction: Letter grade only
Class Meeting Time: 5:30—7:00 pm (PT)
Tuition: $1290
Refund Deadline: Jan 8
Unit(s): 2
Enrollment Limit: 15
Status: Registration opens Nov 30, 8:30 am (PT)
Quarter: Winter
Day: Wednesdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 5:30—7:00 pm (PT)
Date(s): Jan 6—Mar 10
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $1290
Refund Deadline: Jan 8
Instructor(s): Rose Whitmore
Grade Restriction: Letter grade only
Enrollment Limit: 15
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Registration opens Nov 30, 8:30 am (PT)
This course is not open to the public, but rather by admission only. For more information on the Writing Certificate Program and its application process, please click here.
Through close analysis of a variety of published memoirs, we will assess the impact of various strategies for beginning personal narrative. We will examine prologues and first chapters, studying how they engage readers while revealing the stakes, promises, questions, and themes of a memoir. Reading assignments, structured discussions, and thought-provoking prompts will nurture the development of vivid scenes, enabling you to generate pages without the pressure of needing to structure your entire memoir yet. Seeking to uncover the psychic battle or arc of your story will provide you with a guiding principle as you continue to generate content. You will finish this course with an intentionally crafted beginning composed of thematically connected scenes.
Through close analysis of a variety of published memoirs, we will assess the impact of various strategies for beginning personal narrative. We will examine prologues and first chapters, studying how they engage readers while revealing the stakes, promises, questions, and themes of a memoir. Reading assignments, structured discussions, and thought-provoking prompts will nurture the development of vivid scenes, enabling you to generate pages without the pressure of needing to structure your entire memoir yet. Seeking to uncover the psychic battle or arc of your story will provide you with a guiding principle as you continue to generate content. You will finish this course with an intentionally crafted beginning composed of thematically connected scenes.
ROSE WHITMORE
Author
Rose Whitmore is the recipient of the 2021 James Jones First Novel Fellowship, the Oran Robert Perry Burke Award from The Southern Review, and a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford, where she received the 2023 Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize. She has received fellowships from the Hemingway House in Ketchum, Idaho, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Hedgebrook, and the San Leandro Arts Commission. Her debut novel, Exiled, is forthcoming from Dzanc Books in September 2027. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Chaney Kwak, The Passenger: How a Travel Writer Learned to Love Cruises & Other Lies from a Sinking Ship (ISBN 978-1567926972)
(Required) A.M. Homes, The Mistress's Daughter (ISBN 978-0143113317)
(Required) A.M. Homes, The Mistress's Daughter (ISBN 978-0143113317)