The Body and Soul of Your Memoir: Shape, Focus & Write Your Memoir

The calling to share our lives in memoir form brings many of us to the page. How then do we find what the memoir most wants to be? Unearthing the soul (the main focus and calling of your memoir) and the body (the organization and structure) takes careful discernment, attentive writing, and wild abandon, all of which we’ll do in this class.

Through innovative writing prompts, readings and reflections, and sharing ideas and plans in progress, you’ll learn ways to home in your main focus, map out scenes, shape chapters, and bird-by-bird, build a strong and flexible outline that gives you freedom and structure. Along the way, you’ll explore the art and practice of creating enduring settings and characters. You’ll also write at least 50 pages of your memoir, whether you’re just beginning, continuing, or close to finishing your manuscript. By doing the actual writing at the same time you’re developing your focus and structure, you’ll continually be able to integrate the book’s evolution into your writing process.

All of this writing travels hand-in-hand with investigating how other memoir writers put their books together. Weekly online lessons will include excerpts of powerful memoirs, annotated outlines of how the writers organized and developed their memoirs, and interviews (videos, podcasts, articles) with memoir writers. Featured memoirist will include: James McBride, Linda Hogan, Stephanie Mills, J. Drew Lanham, Sharon Butala, Joy Harjo, Kim Stafford, Chris Offut, Anne Lamott, Fenton Johnson, Gregory Orr, Sloan Crosley, and others.

Each week, you’ll share and receive encouraging feedback on a scene, excerpt, or other material from your memoir. Weekly online discussions on how to best sustain your writing process will help you continue to write, finish, and revise your memoir after the class. This class also includes weekly resources for the Care and Feeding of the Writer.