WHENEVER MY ONLINE MEMOIR CLASSES are about to start up again after a break, I get very happy. I love the anticipation, knowing I’ll meet new people, reconnect with friends, and generally get the crap scared out of me via the adventure that is teaching memoir. Yes, that’s right: Scared. You bet. And why not? We work hard and play hard in that room, but most of all we learn hard. Want to know what we’ll be learning? Here are 5 key writing tips I’ll teach every time.
My memoir classes have been going on now for more than 25 years, and sometime early on I threw out the canned lectures and started teaching from the work that is brought in. It changed everything, upping that scared-the-crap-out-of-me quotient by about 700 percent, and keeping things fresh. Instead of lecturing about dialogue, I wait until someone writes some and have at it, teaching, talking, asking questions about the role of dialogue, and how mostly it buckles under the weight of what we assign it.
Someone will inevitably be struggling with how to get to work. Another writer will want help on an essay on how to portray one of the high emotional holy days of the year. Both are great topics. Here’s a little sample of how I cover the many aspects of writing memoir.
- Few people realize that you need a news peg on every short piece of memoir writing
- You must be hospitable to your memoir writing practice
- How to take notes on your own life when writing memoir
- Writing for the high emotional holy days of life? How about a personal essay on the upcoming holidays? Write it now and get it on your local public radio for this year’s celebration.
- How to characterize you and your family when writing memoir?
I’ll keep you posted about how it goes. Better yet, why not join us for an online memoir class?
We’d love to have you.
Want more help? Join me in live, online memoir classes
Start here, with The Memoir Project System Page, to understand the breadth of all the classes we teach.
Want to jump right in? Here’s a sampling of our classes.
Memoirama: Live, 90 minutes. Everything you need to write what you know.
Memoirama 2. Live, two hours. Limited to seven writers. What you need to know to structure a book.
How to Write Opinion Pieces: Op-eds, Radio Essays and Digital Commentary: Live, 90 minutes. Get your voice out into the world.
And keep in mind that I am now taking names for the next Master Class, the prerequisites for which are Memoirama and Memoirama 2. Live, once a month. Limited to seven writers. Get a first draft of your memoir finished in six months.
Shirley Hershey Showalter says
Thanks for saying you were scared, Marion. I’m teaching memoir to honors students at the 300 level in university this fall. I was surprised how many butterflies I had on the first night, even after 21 years of teaching experience. It helps, of course, to place my attention on the students and try to ignore my own butterflies. They’ve arranged themselves nicely after three classes.
Your students are lucky! Great ideas. Thanks for sharing them.
marion says
Ooooh. Honors students at the 300 level. Butterflies, indeed. Thanks for admitting it. I so appreciate that. Hoping yours is a fine year teaching. I think those students are blessed to have you.