See also:
Memoir Writing Intensive
Up next:
Memoir Writing II
Memoir Writing I

Memoir Writing I is a 10-week workshop, which includes lectures, exercises, and the critiquing of student projects. It’s for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals. Farther down, you can view a syllabus for this course.

Every life holds many tales. Whether your life is wildly unconventional or relatively normal, there’s bound to be something fascinating about it. That’s why the contemporary memoir—everyday people telling their stories—has become such a popular phenomenon. A memoir covers an aspect of a life, whether it’s a short piece about, say, a bicycle ride with a friend, or a book about, say, your entire childhood.

To make readers care, your memoir must be told with the finesse of fiction. Here you’ll learn techniques for focusing your life stories, as well as writing craft and how to market your work.

Whether you seek to write essay-length pieces or a book, we’ll show you how to best tell the stories from your life.

About Memoir Writing
Memoir Writing I

Wonderful introduction to memoir writing with explanatory lectures and exercises that build skills.

Lisa Gilbert

architect

Notes

A memoir is similar to a personal essay; both incorporate elements from the writer’s life. But a personal essay focuses more on the viewpoint, and a memoir focuses more on the story. Gotham also offers courses on Essay & Opinion Writing and an Intensive on Personal Essay Writing.

Upcoming Classes

Price

Registration fee $25, paid once per term

See Payment Options

To register for a 10-Week course, you need to pay in full to guarantee your place in class. Or you can pay a $95 deposit plus a $25 registration fee (total $120) to temporarily hold your place, but tuition must be paid in full 10 business days before your class starts or you risk losing your spot. No deposits for Zoetrope classes.

10-Week

Syllabus

This course gives you a firm grounding in the basics of memoir craft and gets you writing a short memoir (or two) or a book. Course components:
     Lectures
     Writing exercises
     Workshopping of student projects (each student presenting work two times)

New York City/Zoom classes
The syllabus varies from teacher to teacher, term to term. Many topics will be similar to those covered in the Online classes.

Online classes 
Week 1
Introduction to Memoir: The contemporary memoir defined. Short and long memoirs. Finding the “who cares?” in your story. Focusing on an aspect of your life. Types of memoirs—coming of age, adversity, relationship, career, travel.

Week 2
Mining Your Memory: How “true” must it be? Researching your past. The balance of being “actor” and “observer.” Not using memoir as therapy. Facing the truth.

Week 3
Character: Thinking of real people as characters. Making characters dimensional through desire and contrasts. Creating character profiles. Showing vs. Telling. Methods for showing characters.

Week 4
Plot: Finding a major dramatic question. Shaping a beginning, middle, and end. The difference between short and long plots. Pros and cons of outlining.

Week 5
Description: Using the senses. Specificity. Techniques for creativity. Finding the right words. Merging description with point of view.

Week 6
Dialogue: The importance of scene. Turning real life conversations into dialogue. Quotation marks and tags. Stage directions. Summarized dialogue. Characterization through dialogue. Subtext.

Week 7
Point of View/Voice: Point of view defined. First person and other memoir alternatives. Voice defined. Exploration of the various types of voice. Tips for finding your voice.

Week 8
Setting/Pacing: Creating setting through time, place, and weather. Description of setting. Mood and emotion of setting. How to manipulate time through pacing. Flashbacks.

Week 9
Theme/Revision: Theme defined. Types of theme. Weaving theme into a story. Exploration of the various stages of revision.

Week 10
The Business: Proper format for manuscripts. How to target publishing houses, literary magazines, and agents. How to send your work out. Query letters.

Note: Content may vary among individual classes.

Teachers

Amanda Oliver
Amanda Oliver

Amanda Oliver is the author of the nonfiction book Overdue: Reckoning With the Public Library (Chicago Review Press), and her essays have appeared in Electric Literature, the Los Angeles Times, the Rumpus, PANK, and Medium, among many others. She is formerly the nonfiction editor of Joyland Magazine, and she has taught for the University of California at Riverside. She holds a BA and an MLS from the State University of New York at Buffalo, and an MFA in nonfiction from the University of California at Riverside. 

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Carmen Bugan
Carmen Bugan

Carmen Bugan is the author of the memoir Burying the Typewriter (Picador), the essay collection Poetry and the Language of Oppression (Oxford University), and the poetry collections Tristia, Time Being, Lillies from America, Releasing the Porcelain Birds, The House of Straw (all Shearsman Books), Sulla Soglia Della Dimenticanza (Kolibris), and Crossing the Carpathians (Carcanet Press), as well as the monograph Seamus Heaney and East European Poetry in Translation: Poetics of Exile (Routledge). Her poems and essays have appeared in the Irish Times, Harvard Review, the International Literature Quarterly, the Nieman Storyboard, and the anthologies Centres of Catacylsm (Bloodaxe Books), See How I Land (Heaven Tree Press), and Penguin’s Poems for Life (Penguin). She has taught at New York University in Abu Dhabi, Stony Brook University, the University of Michigan, Grand Valley State University, the University of Fribourg, the Geneva Writers’ Group, and Oxford University. She holds a BA from the University of Michigan, an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University, and a Master’s and Ph.D, both in English Literature, from Oxford University.

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Cullen Thomas
Cullen Thomas

Cullen Thomas is the author of the memoir Brother One Cell (Viking). His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Salon, The Rumpus, The Sonora Review, World Hum, Current Biography, and Penthouse. He has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and the National Geographic channel and has taught at NYU. He holds a BA from Binghamton University.

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Kashawn Taylor
Kashawn Taylor

Kashawn Taylor is the author of the essay and story collection Kites (Whiskey Tit Books) and the poetry collection Subhuman (Wayfarer Books). His short fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in Poetry Magazine, the Indiana Review, the Offing, Miracle Monocle, Oyster River Pages, Minutes Before Six, the Union Spring Literary Review, and BULL, among others. He is the Audience Engagement Fellow for the Prison Journalism Project. He holds a BA from the University of Connecticut and an MA in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University.

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Nan Mooney
Nan Mooney

Nan Mooney is the author of the memoir My Racing Heart: The Passionate World of Thoroughbreds and the Track (HarperCollins), and the nonfiction books (Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents (Beacon Press) and I Can't Believe She Did That: Why Women Betray Other Women at Work (St. Martin's Press). Her nonfiction has also appeared in The Atlantic, the Washington Post,Slate, Motherwell, Alternet, and Babble. She holds a BA from Scripps College.

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Siavash Saadlou
Siavash Saadlou

Siavash Saadlou has published short stories, essays, and translations in Ploughshares, Southeast Review, the Bellingham Review, and New England Review, among many others. He’s the winner of several literary prizes, including the Conger Beasley Jr. Award for Nonfiction, and his work has been named Notable in the Best American Essays series. He has taught at the University of British Columbia, St. Mary’s College of California, and the Quebec Writers’ Federation. He holds MFAs from St. Mary's College of California and the University of British Columbia.

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