DCI Intermediate Memoir Workshop

Catalog description

Open to DCI Fellows & Partners only. DCI Intermediate Memoir Workshop will take as its occasion for your creative development a continuing examination of memoir essays and memoir book excerpts. These texts broadly innovate within and outside of the formal traditions you studied in DCI Memoir workshop, to find new and exciting ways to represent personal experience. We will read authors including Kathryn Harrison, Brian Doyle, Jerald Walker, Patricia Hampl, MFK Fisher, Jo Ann Beard, and Tressie McMillan Cottom. This course will also serve as the continuing examination and practice of formal memoir writing. My goal for your learning in this class is that you walk out of our last session having done the following: 1) Written a next piece to follow in some way on your work in DCI Memoir: a new or next chapter, a related or new essay, an expansion into a larger piece, etc. 2) Looked at more sophisticated models for writing about your own life in a meaningful way, including hybrids of journalism and personal writing (e.g., The New Yorker), deep dives into personal subjects that twin with passions or areas of expertise, travel writing, and lyric forms of the essay. 3) Written two Short Essays based on more sophisticated writing prompts. 4) Participated in whole-class workshops for both Short Essays, and in a full-class workshop for your next piece. 5) Practiced giving and receiving helpful individual and workshop peer feedback. A variety of creative prompts, critical exercises, and assigned readings will foster your understanding and appreciation of creative nonfiction, as well as your growth as a creative writer. Energetic, committed participation is a must.