CURRENTS
Dates: 05.07.17 – 05.12.17
Location: A boutique hotel in Frenchtown, NJ
Number of students: 9
“THINK OF MEMOIR AS A BRIDGE, A STRUT, A SPAN CONNECTING THE KNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN, THE DISTANT AND THE NEAR, THE YOU AND THE ME. THINK OF MEMOIR AS POLITICS.” – BETH KEPHART
WHAT WILL WE DO?
Our May workshop focuses on the development of a fully rendered memoir or memoiristic essay. Voice, tone, themes, and universal questions will be reviewed, as will the questions: How do we effectively structure our stories? How do we make decisions about what gets included and what remains out of sight? How do we transition through time? Our setting will be an historic inn in Frenchtown, NJ. Work will be grounded in the shared reading of a single book (as well as some longer essays).
Our mornings will be dedicated to craft lectures, analysis, and prompts. Our afternoons will focus on group critiques of longer pieces. There will be a culminating evening of special readings. We will make room each day for private 40-minute sessions.
IS IT RIGHT FOR YOU?
This workshop is the right workshop for those who have spent some time developing a memoir or memoiristic essay and want to take their work to the next level.
WHAT TO SEND IN ADVANCE
To help ensure that you get the most out of our time together, please send, one month in advance, your finished memoir prologue, your first chapter, and a book outline. If you are not working on a book, but are working, instead, on memoiristic essays, please send up to 15 pages of a piece you would like deep feedback on.
