OWC 204 A — Memoir II: Plotting Your Life
Quarter: Spring
Instructor(s): Liza Monroy
Date(s): Mar 31—Jun 2
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Tuesdays
Grade Restriction: Letter grade only
Class Meeting Time: 12:30—1:45 pm (PT)
Tuition: $1240
Refund Deadline: Apr 2
Unit(s): 2
Enrollment Limit: 15
Status: Registration opens Feb 23, 8:30 am (PT)
Quarter: Spring
Day: Tuesdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 12:30—1:45 pm (PT)
Date(s): Mar 31—Jun 2
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $1240
Refund Deadline: Apr 2
Instructor(s): Liza Monroy
Grade Restriction: Letter grade only
Enrollment Limit: 15
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Registration opens Feb 23, 8:30 am (PT)
This course is not open to the public, but rather by admission only. For more information on the Online Writing Certificate Program and its application process, please click here.
Plotting a memoir can be challenging, since real-life experiences often lack a tidy structure. In this course, our aim is to balance the authenticity of lived experience with the art of storytelling, preserving truth while learning techniques to captivate readers, such as simplification and selection, enabling us to know what material to pick from the vast store of lived experience. We will tackle the struggle of maintaining momentum in the middle of the book, with practical strategies to combat writer's block and ensure sustained reader engagement. Through outlining and project mapping, students will establish a plot framework that will still allow room for creative exploration.
Plotting a memoir can be challenging, since real-life experiences often lack a tidy structure. In this course, our aim is to balance the authenticity of lived experience with the art of storytelling, preserving truth while learning techniques to captivate readers, such as simplification and selection, enabling us to know what material to pick from the vast store of lived experience. We will tackle the struggle of maintaining momentum in the middle of the book, with practical strategies to combat writer's block and ensure sustained reader engagement. Through outlining and project mapping, students will establish a plot framework that will still allow room for creative exploration.
LIZA MONROY
Author
Liza Monroy is the author of The Distractions and Mexican High, the memoir The Marriage Act, and the essay collection Seeing as Your Shoes Are Soon to be on Fire. Her work has appeared in The New York Times Modern Love column, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Longreads, Newsweek, Self, and Best American Food Writing. She received an MFA in nonfiction from Columbia and has taught writing at Columbia and UC Santa Cruz. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Lidia Yuknavitch, Reading the Waves: A Memoir (ISBN 978-0593713051)
(Optional) Alan Watt, The 90-Day Memoir: Tell the Story of Your Life (ISBN 978-1937746292)
(Optional) Melissa Febos, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative (ISBN 978-1646220854)
(Optional) Alan Watt, The 90-Day Memoir: Tell the Story of Your Life (ISBN 978-1937746292)
(Optional) Melissa Febos, Body Work: The Radical Power of Personal Narrative (ISBN 978-1646220854)