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Everyone has a story to tell. Whether a life is unconventional or relatively normal, there’s bound to be something fascinating about it. That’s why the contemporary memoir – everyday people telling their tales – has become such a popular phenomenon. Memoirs appear throughout magazines and bookstores and a lucky few, such as Angela’s Ashes and The Liar’s Club, even make the bestseller list.
To make readers care, your memoir must be told with the finesse of fiction. In our courses, you will learn how to focus your life stories, give them literary purpose, and apply such craft elements as character, plot, description, dialogue, setting, pacing, and theme. You will also learn how and where 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.
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Level I
Memoir Writing | 10-week Workshop
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| Using a balance of lecture, exercise, and feedback on work from the instructor and classmates, this course gives students a firm grounding in all the basics of memoir writing. Everything is presented in a clear, accessible manner.
Memoir I is for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals.
View a course syllabus.
(3.0 CEU)
| New York City Classes |
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Tuition:
$395, Returning Students $365 .
Registration Fee $25.
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* You can still enroll in this class!  = Daytime Class
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Advanced
Memoir Writing | 10-week Workshop
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Focusing on developing projects and receiving feedback from the instructor and classmates, this course helps students sharpen their skills and work toward completion of publishable work. Writers often repeat Memoir II to continue their projects.
- Write or refine one/two short memoirs or begin or work toward completion of a book
- Lectures that expand on basics of memoir craft
- Writing exercises
- Present work for in-depth critique
Prerequisite: Memoir Writing I or the equivalent.
Which level is right for you? How
to Choose a Level
(3.0 CEU)
| New York City Classes |
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Tuition:
$395, Returning Students $365 .
Registration Fee $25.
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* You can still enroll in this class!
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Master Class
Memoir Writing | 10-week Workshop
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The Memoir Writing Master Class provides students deeply immersed in the writing of a book-length memoir (or shorter piece) with the opportunity to work with a published memoirist and other dedicated writers in a small class setting. The class is devoted almost exclusively to workshopping — the reading, critiquing, and discussion of student novels. Every student will be allowed to workshop approximately 150 pages of a book. (Students may also work on short pieces, but may only submit one piece at a time.) Class size is limited to six students, all of whom have done a substantial amount of work on a memoir project and are experienced in the workshop process.
Instructor: Pat Willard is the author of three nonfiction books: Pie Every Day (Algonquin), A Soothing Broth (Broadway Books), and Secrets of Saffron (Beacon Press), and her work has been anthologized in Best Food Writing of 2001 (Marlowe &Co.), and Best American Recipes 2002-2003 (Houghton Mifflin). She holds an MFA from Goucher College.
Prerequisites: The following are prerequisites for students who take Memoir Writing Master Class:
- A complete (or nearly complete) draft of a book-length memoir or short memoir
- Completion of two terms of Gotham’s Memoir II or Fiction II or Novel II courses
- Acceptance by Gotham based on a sample of the student’s work
To be accepted into the Memoir Writing Master Class all students must first submit a sample of their work.
Your writing sample may be no more than ten pages. Ideally, the sample will be the first ten pages of the memoir you plan to workshop in the Memoir Writing Master Class. If that material is not yet available, you may submit ten pages from another work of your own.
A Note on the Class: All students in this class will be expected to read and critique segments of one hundred pages or more per week. The success of the class depends on the full participation of all students. Students should only take this course if they are confident they can handle the weekly load of reading and critiquing. To make this more manageable, students should have already done most or all of the work on the memoir that they plan to present to the class before class begins
A Note to Applicants: The Master Classes often get far more applicants than can be accepted, and so talented and dedicated students are often not accepted. If you are not accepted in a Master Class, you are welcome to apply another time, and you may well be accepted then.
(3.0 CEU)
| New York City Classes |
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Tuition:
$545, No Discounts.
Registration Fee $25.
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Memoir Writing | One-Day in
NYC
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The One-Day Workshops are fun, fast-paced immersions in a type of writing. You’ll get a mixture of brief lectures that hit the high-points and writing exercises that let you immediately try your hand at what you’ve just learned. The one-days provide an excellent overview of their fields, ideal for both the beginner and someone wanting a quick refresher course. Come in one day on the weekend with a notepad, pen, and desire to learn. By Monday, you’ll be a more knowledgeable and skilled writer.
One-Days are for beginners or anyone who wants to brush up on the fundamentals.
Topics include: the contemporary memoir defined, character, plot, description, getting published
| New York City Classes |
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Tuition:
$125.
Registration Fee $25.
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