Memoir Workshop Information + Registration

Our Inherited History: (Re)writing Our Memories

A Memoir Workshop with Rachael Cerrotti

We are all born into an inherited story. Sometimes that story comes in the form of left behind diaries, worn out documents, or through snippets of conversations at the dinner table. Sometimes the story is interpreted through photographs and collected souvenirs. And, in many cases the story lives in the silent spaces of memories never spoken. Sometimes we don’t think about the stories of the past and sometimes they feel like a weight that we need to write away.

In this workshop, we will both focus on the craft of writing and rewriting (for those who may be inspired from journals and texts) as well as dive into the complicated questions and ethics of taking family stories, whether they are ours or someone else’s, and writing them for the public eye. Together we will write pages and chapters that are rich in meaning while leaving space for ambiguity and work to take the particular and place it into the context of the universal (and vice versa). Through group conversation, we will discuss what to do with competing or contradictory memories/facts, the question of whose perspective to write from, how to confront big topics like grief, immigration and love and how to choose what isn’t included in our final piece (sometimes the hardest part). We will also consider the responsibility of writing words that will be read by future generations.

+ SUBMIT Participants are asked to please submit in advance a memoir manuscript (an essay or memoir excerpt) up to 2500 words. Email the manuscript no later than 9:00 a.m. on October 6 to programs@mainewriters.org with the subject line: “MEMOIR MSS.”

Participants in this workshop are encouraged to bring photographs to use in the writing process.

Rachael Cerrotti is the author of We Share The Same Sky: A Memoir of Memory and Migration. The book received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, was the winner of the 2022 Maine Literary Award in memoir and shortlisted for the 2022 William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. The book follows her narrative podcast, also titled We Share The Same Sky, which was the listed as one of the best podcasts of 2019 by HuffPost, a runner up in the prose category for the Miller Audio Prize, chosen as a Reader’s Pick by Vulture Magazine and as a “Show We Love” by Apple Podcasts. We Share The Same Sky (the podcast and book) are now being taught in classrooms around the world and is being adapted for a traveling museum exhibit. Rachael’s work combines photos, video, audio, primary source documents and of course the written word to tell true stories that often explore the humanity of grief and how stories are passed from one generation to the next. She is currently the Inaugural Storyteller in Residence for USC Shoah Foundation and produces/hosts The Memory Generation podcast. She lives in Portland.


Registration

For more detail about room & board options, please click here.

An important note: to ensure the safety of all participants, all registrants for the Harvest Writers Retreat must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination. Those who are not vaccinated are welcome to join us for our online workshops.