Instructor: Ryan Britt
Date & Time: Tuesdays, January 21 – March 24 | 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM
Location: USM’s Glickman Library, Portland
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Maximum Attendees: 12
Fee: Member $450 [+ $5 materials fee] | Nonmember $600 [+ $5 materials fee]
Registration Closes: January 14
Like good novels, good memoirs give the reader a compelling narrative sweep that keeps them turning the pages, hungry for what happens next. Of course, the writer of the memoir knows what happens next, because the story being told comes from their own life experiences. But creating that narrative sweep can be challenging for the writer who is trying to complete their first book-length memoir.
This 10-week masterclass workshop is designed to answer the hard questions writers face when structuring their first book-length memoir. How much of a time span should the book cover? Does one story need to be told, or many? Should the narrative be sequenced chronologically or thematically?
Through close readings of contemporary memoirs, writing exercises, lectures, and workshopping of participant’s manuscripts, this course will help writers understand how their memoir will unfold. Writers will also feel empowered to try out structural approaches that reject the notion of a beginning, middle and end—just like the lives they reflect, memoirs need not be structured like a fairy tale.
Participants should have some specific ideas of what their memoir will be about, and may be underway with their writing, but do not need to have completed a book-length manuscript.
This class will study selections from the memoirs of Dani Shapiro, Patti Smith, John Hodgman, David Sedaris, Michael Chabon, Baratunde Thurston, Nicholas Meyer, Gary Shteyngart, Etgar Keret, Ursula K. Le Guin, Chuck Klosterman, Rob Sheffield and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
SUBMIT
After registering, participants are asked to submit a manuscript (a memoir excerpt, ideally from the beginning of the manuscript, but this is not required) of up to 5,000 words by no later than 9:00 AM on January 14. Please email the manuscript to perry@mainewriters.org with the subject line: “BRITT WORKSHOP MSS.” Please help MWPA conserve paper by using standard formatting (1” margins, double-spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman) and keeping spacing between sections to a minimum (e.g. no title page). *Word docs (ideally) or PDFs only, please.
DATES
The workshop will meet every Tuesday between January 21 and March 24, unless unforeseen scheduling issues should arise.
PAYMENTS
MWPA members may pay for this workshop in one payment, or may pay in three installments of $151.70, due at registration and the middle of each month (February, March). *PLEASE NOTE If you have selected to pay for this multi-week workshop on the installment option, once registration for the workshop has closed, you are responsible for paying all of the remaining installments. If you should, for any reason, leave the workshop after registration has closed, you are still responsible for paying all of the remaining installments.
CEU
The MWPA is proud to offer Continuing Education Units (CEU) for this workshop. The CEU is a nationally recognized method of quantifying the time spent in the classroom during non-credit learning. Ten hours of instruction equal one (1) CEU. (*Please note that by definition, CEUs are non-credit continuing education and therefore not transferrable as academic credit.)