Memoir Writing I
GUIDE TO NONFICTION COURSES
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.
If the memories inside your head are as cluttered and chaotic as all those photos you still haven't put into albums, this course is a good way to start imposing some structure on them.
Suzanne Lamuniere
IT purchasing coordinator
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
NYC, Zoom classes are being scheduled. Please check back soon.
10-Week
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Online
Anytime, week-long sessions
Tuition: $464 (returning students: $434)
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One-on-One
Tuition: $1895
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 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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Elizabeth Cohen
Elizabeth Cohen is the author of the memoir The House On Beartown Road (Random House), the short story collectionThe Hypothetical Girl (Split Oak Press), and the poetry collections Mermaids of Albuquerque (Saint Julian Press), The Economist's Daughter (Ecstatic Utterance), What the Trees Said (Split Oak Press), Bird Light, The Patron Saint of Cauliflower (both Saint Julian Press), and Wonder Electric (Kelsay Books). She is also co-author of the nonfiction book The Scalpel and the Silver Bear (Bantam). Her nonfiction and poetry have appeared in Newsweek, People, the New York Times Magazine, and Yale Review, as well as the anthology Walk on the Wild Side. She has taught at SUNY Plattsburgh, Binghamton University, University of New Mexico, the New School for Social Research, and Western Connecticut State University. She holds a BA from University of New Mexico, an MA in Documentary Filmmaking from Temple University, and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University.
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Jil Picariello
Jil Picariello is the co-author of the memoir Jessica Lost (Union Square Press). She is the Theater Editor for ZealNYC, and her nonfiction has appeared in Afar, Food + Wine, New York, Seventeen, and USA Today. She has worked as a copywriter for New York and People, as copy chief for The Parenting Group at Time Warner, and as copy director for Reader’s Digest. She has taught at Media Bistro. She holds a BFA from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from The New School.
Read moreis 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.
is the author of the memoir The House On Beartown Road (Random House), the short story collectionThe Hypothetical Girl (Split Oak Press), and the poetry collections Mermaids of Albuquerque (Saint Julian Press), The Economist's Daughter (Ecstatic Utterance), What the Trees Said (Split Oak Press), Bird Light, The Patron Saint of Cauliflower (both Saint Julian Press), and Wonder Electric (Kelsay Books). She is also co-author of the nonfiction book The Scalpel and the Silver Bear (Bantam). Her nonfiction and poetry have appeared in Newsweek, People, the New York Times Magazine, and Yale Review, as well as the anthology Walk on the Wild Side. She has taught at SUNY Plattsburgh, Binghamton University, University of New Mexico, the New School for Social Research, and Western Connecticut State University. She holds a BA from University of New Mexico, an MA in Documentary Filmmaking from Temple University, and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia University.
is the co-author of the memoir Jessica Lost (Union Square Press). She is the Theater Editor for ZealNYC, and her nonfiction has appeared in Afar, Food + Wine, New York, Seventeen, and USA Today. She has worked as a copywriter for New York and People, as copy chief for The Parenting Group at Time Warner, and as copy director for Reader’s Digest. She has taught at Media Bistro. She holds a BFA from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from The New School.
Related Courses
Essay & Opinion Writing I
Various types of viewpoint writing—essays, op-eds, reviews, and more.
Humor Writing
Prose writing with a humorous slant—fiction, memoir, essay, you name it.
Creative Nonfiction 101
A great entry point for the creative forms of nonfiction—memoir, essay, feature articles, reviews, etc.
