A five-week workshop with peer and instructor feedback for writers working on memoir: short story, novel, or novella welcome. All levels. Taught by Neva Knott.
5 Sessions
Wednesdays 1:30-4:00pm
October 21
October 28
November 4
November 11
November 18
Memoir. More than the personal essay, different than the autobiography. At its core, memoir is the true story of one specific aspect of the writer’s life and is often written as a way to understand the power and place that one aspect holds in one’s life. In this course, we will explore the structure and craft of memoir while actively developing a memoir draft.
Through workshopping participant’s drafts, we will:
Consider the what, when, where, why, and how of the topic, what to put in and what to leave out.
Identify the key scenes of the topic.
Develop a logical order for the memoir.
Consider appeals to the reader and turn the details of the event into an engaging story.
Learn and deploy elements of craft such as scene, summary, dialog; use of descriptive details to drive the story forward; focus and point of view; voice and word choice.
Understand the role of researching one’s life in writing a memoir.
Class Maximum: 10 students
Location: upstairs at OlyPages Studio. Find us.
A scholarship may be available for this class.
Please contact us for more information.
Instructor: Neva Knott
Neva built her creativity in the gritty time of DIY Portland happening in un-gentrified warehouses, lofts full of creativity, when everyone was making something. Neva was making Plazm magazine, a gallery in print for artists, writers, graphic designers, and voices often unheard. She carried her creativity with her when she became an English teacher and through graduate school, for an environmental writing degree and for a MFA in creative non-fiction.
For Neva, writing is a place to dump the jumble in her brain, an outlet for her intellect. She believes everyone needs an outlet for their intellect, and that storytelling makes a better world.
This class takes place upstairs in OlyPages Studio. Learn how to find us.