OWC 205 B — Memoir III: Envisioning an Ending
Quarter: Fall
Instructor(s): Greg Wrenn
Date(s): Sep 23—Dec 2
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Grade Restriction: Letter grade only
Class Meeting Time: 12:00—1:15 pm (PT)
Please Note: No class the week of November 23
Tuition: $1290
Refund Deadline: Sep 25
Unit(s): 2
Enrollment Limit: 15
Status: Registration opens Aug 17, 8:30 am (PT)
Quarter: Fall
Day: Wednesdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 12:00—1:15 pm (PT)
Date(s): Sep 23—Dec 2
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $1290
Refund Deadline: Sep 25
Instructor(s): Greg Wrenn
Grade Restriction: Letter grade only
Enrollment Limit: 15
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Registration opens Aug 17, 8:30 am (PT)
Please Note: No class the week of November 23
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.
It is time to envision your memoir’s ending, which will provide a clear sense of destination and urgency to carry you through the rest of your project. We will review examples of published memoir endings, explore strategies for concluding a memoir, and work toward crafting a resonant ending that delivers on the promise of the beginning. We will also examine questions of truthfulness in memoir, including the use of representational scenes, time compression, and composite characters. You will continue generating new material to deepen themes and heighten the stakes of your story. While you may not yet be at the end of your manuscript, knowing where you want the story to land will help ensure coherence and imbue the pages you are still drafting with a sense of inevitability and resonance.
It is time to envision your memoir’s ending, which will provide a clear sense of destination and urgency to carry you through the rest of your project. We will review examples of published memoir endings, explore strategies for concluding a memoir, and work toward crafting a resonant ending that delivers on the promise of the beginning. We will also examine questions of truthfulness in memoir, including the use of representational scenes, time compression, and composite characters. You will continue generating new material to deepen themes and heighten the stakes of your story. While you may not yet be at the end of your manuscript, knowing where you want the story to land will help ensure coherence and imbue the pages you are still drafting with a sense of inevitability and resonance.
GREG WRENN
Memoir Writing Certificate Instructor, Stanford Continuing Studies
Greg Wrenn is the author of Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis and Centaur, winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry. His work has appeared in The New Republic, The Kenyon Review, HuffPost, Al Jazeera, BuzzFeed, and elsewhere. Honors include fellowships and awards from the James Merrill House, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Poetry Society of America. He is an associate professor of English at James Madison University and a former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford.Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Vivian Gornick, Fierce Attachments (ISBN 978-0374529963)
(Required) Sofia Samatar, The White Mosque (ISBN 978-1646222032)
(Required) Laurie Alberts, Showing and Telling: Learn How to Show & When to Tell for Powerful & Balanced Writing (ISBN 978-1582977058)
(Required) Sofia Samatar, The White Mosque (ISBN 978-1646222032)
(Required) Laurie Alberts, Showing and Telling: Learn How to Show & When to Tell for Powerful & Balanced Writing (ISBN 978-1582977058)