OWC 201 C — The Writing Life: Form and Theory in Memoir
Quarter: Fall
Instructor(s): Rose Whitmore
Date(s): Sep 23—Dec 2
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Grade Restriction: Letter grade only
Class Meeting Time: 5:30—7:00 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: 5:30—7:00 pm (PT)
Date(s): Sep 23—Dec 2
Unit(s): 2
Tuition: $1290
Refund Deadline: Sep 25
Instructor(s): Rose Whitmore
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.
As Mary Karr said, "In some ways, writing a memoir is knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it’s done right." In the first course of the Memoir Writing Certificate program, students will be asked to engage deeply with their proposed memoir and the elements of craft employed in nonfiction. As we survey the diverse landscape of memoir today, we will analyze books, essays, and excerpts, experimenting with new techniques and approaches to the genre, from the narrative to the lyric, and unearthing how authors’ theories of the self inform their craft choices. The beginning of the course will be exploratory and generative, inviting students to let go of fixed notions of what their story might be. In the second half of the quarter, students will share up to 5,000 words of their memoir for peer and instructor feedback, and begin to hone their narrative persona and story, crystallizing their approach to the genre. If a student engages fully with the course, submitting a 5,000-word workshop piece and written responses to most optional creative prompts, they can expect to generate approximately 10,000 words of work in this course.
As Mary Karr said, "In some ways, writing a memoir is knocking yourself out with your own fist, if it’s done right." In the first course of the Memoir Writing Certificate program, students will be asked to engage deeply with their proposed memoir and the elements of craft employed in nonfiction. As we survey the diverse landscape of memoir today, we will analyze books, essays, and excerpts, experimenting with new techniques and approaches to the genre, from the narrative to the lyric, and unearthing how authors’ theories of the self inform their craft choices. The beginning of the course will be exploratory and generative, inviting students to let go of fixed notions of what their story might be. In the second half of the quarter, students will share up to 5,000 words of their memoir for peer and instructor feedback, and begin to hone their narrative persona and story, crystallizing their approach to the genre. If a student engages fully with the course, submitting a 5,000-word workshop piece and written responses to most optional creative prompts, they can expect to generate approximately 10,000 words of work in this course.
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) Mary Karr, The Art of Memoir (ISBN 978-0062223074)
(Required) Tracy Clark-Flory, My Mother's Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family's Fractured Past (ISBN 978-1668083321)
(Required) Tracy Clark-Flory, My Mother's Daughter: Finding Myself in My Family's Fractured Past (ISBN 978-1668083321)