Courses

You don't need to be a celebrity or the survivor of a once-in-a-lifetime tragedy to draw readers to the story of your life. In fact, “regular” people are often the best memoirists. Instead of relying on a famous name (or a ghostwriter!), we can devote ourselves to the single most important element in any memoir: a strong, inimitable voice that makes the reader instantly feel they know you—or want to. In this course, you will not simply narrate your life story. You will learn to tell that story the way only you can, by learning to identify—and then set on the page—your unique vocabulary, slang, sentence length, and cadence. Each week, we will engage with some of the most compelling memoir voices in print, including Mary Karr, Jesmyn Ward, and Tobias Wolff. Students will respond creatively to two prompts per week designed to develop a particular aspect of their writerly voice and present one piece per week to a small-group workshop moderated by the instructor. In the second half of the course, students will submit a longer chapter or essay draft for further workshop and instructor feedback. The prompts are designed to be cumulative, so students will leave the course with new chapter drafts or revisions.