CNF 109 W — Memoir Workshop: Balancing Intimacy with Objectivity
Quarter: Spring
Instructor(s): Leslie Contreras Schwartz
Date(s): Apr 1—Jun 3
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Tuesdays
Class Meeting Time: 12:00—1:00 pm (PT)
Tuition: $1000
Refund Deadline: Apr 3
Unit(s): 2
Enrollment Limit: 18
Status: Registration opens Feb 24, 8:30 am (PT)
Quarter: Spring
Day: Tuesdays
Duration: 10 weeks
Time: 12:00—1:00 pm (PT)
Date(s): Apr 1—Jun 3
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $1000
Refund Deadline: Apr 3
Instructor(s): Leslie Contreras Schwartz
Enrollment Limit: 18
Recording Available: Yes
Status: Registration opens Feb 24, 8:30 am (PT)
Memoir and creative nonfiction draw from life’s raw experiences, and our early drafts often come across as unfiltered. Crafting a memoir that resonates with readers requires honing the ability to adjust narrative distance. You can learn how to add depth to your story by exploring it within cultural, social, or historical contexts and use metaphor and figurative language to reach a broader audience.
In this course, we will explore strategies to bring depth and richness to your nonfiction, transforming personal stories into narratives that resonate on a universal level. Through close readings and creative exercises, we will experiment with various points of view and practice shifting narrative distance. For inspiration, we will read memoirs like The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang, where the author skillfully weaves between personal accounts of schizophrenia and broader cultural reflections on psychiatry and identity. We will also examine works by Lidia Yuknavitch, Matthew Gavin Frank, Carmen Maria Machado, and Ilya Kaminsky, paying particular attention to how they balance intimacy with objectivity. Students will have the chance to workshop and revise a 5,000-word piece, applying the narrative techniques discussed in class to deepen their personal storytelling.
In this course, we will explore strategies to bring depth and richness to your nonfiction, transforming personal stories into narratives that resonate on a universal level. Through close readings and creative exercises, we will experiment with various points of view and practice shifting narrative distance. For inspiration, we will read memoirs like The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang, where the author skillfully weaves between personal accounts of schizophrenia and broader cultural reflections on psychiatry and identity. We will also examine works by Lidia Yuknavitch, Matthew Gavin Frank, Carmen Maria Machado, and Ilya Kaminsky, paying particular attention to how they balance intimacy with objectivity. Students will have the chance to workshop and revise a 5,000-word piece, applying the narrative techniques discussed in class to deepen their personal storytelling.
Since most of the learning in this course takes place asynchronously in threaded discussions on the Canvas classroom site, the live Zoom sessions are limited to 60 minutes per week.
LESLIE CONTRERAS SCHWARTZ
Faculty, MFA in Creative Writing, Alma College
Leslie Contreras Schwartz is a 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, the 2019–21 Houston Poet Laureate, and the author of the 2022 C&R Press Nonfiction Award winner From the Womb of Sky and Earth, a lyrical memoir. She has published five collections of poetry. Her work has appeared on the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day and in AGNI, The Missouri Review, The Iowa Review, Pleiades, Gulf Coast, and The Best Small Fictions 2019. Contreras Schwartz is a poetry and nonfiction faculty member at Alma College’s MFA low-residency program in creative writing and a lecturer at Rice University, where she received a BA in English. She is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Textbooks for this course:
There are no required textbooks; however, some fee-based online readings may be assigned.