“I write to define myself—an act of self creation—part of the process of becoming.”
Susan Sontag.

This workshop is designed for people who aren’t professional writers, but who have something meaningful to say about their lives. We will learn how to discover our stories and to focus our material using techniques of creative nonfiction and Life Review, an educational process that enhances our understanding of ourselves and our lives through storytelling. By reading, writing and participating in interactive exercises, we will be guided toward finding new ways to write about our lives, for ourselves and/or for others.

What will we learn? How will we learn?

Participants will be introduced to a variety of creative non-fiction as well as techniques used in Life Review. We will read short non-fiction pieces, talk about them, and use them as examples, along with other writing prompts, to write about our own lives and experiences. By the end of the workshop, we will have a clearer sense of our life stories — what stories we want to tell and how we want to tell them.

Prior to the workshop you’ll be given a maximum of three (3) short readings. During the workshop, you’ll be given a handout with three more readings in it. Readings might include full text or excerpts from:

David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Ta-Nahesi Coates, Between the World and Me
Lydia Davis, The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
Joan Didion, “Self Respect”
Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior
Oliver Sacks, Gratitude
Eula Biss, “Goodbye to All That”
Tom Walmsley, “Maxine”
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Stephen Osborne, “Mr. Tube Steak and The Schoolteacher”
Cheryl Strayed, “The Love of My Life”
CD Wright, “By Jude Jean McCramack, Goddmanit to Hell Dog’s Foot”
Tobias Wolff, This Boy’s Life
Jo Ann Beard, The Boys of My Youth
Ryan van Meter, “If You Knew Then What I Know Now”
Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon, Gender Failure
Leanne Simpson, Islands of Decolonial Love