Memoir is defined as an historical account or biography written from personal knowledge. We are currently in trying times and there is a growing need not only to express ourselves through writing, but also to record our experience in ways that will help others to relate and understand.
This eight-week course will revolve around set teaching assignments, writing exercises and peer review feedback, as well as feedback from your tutor; its emphasis will be on the many different ways we can record our own experience through storytelling, but also how we might bridge the gap between the personal and the public.
We will be looking closely at how we use memory in our writing, and how we can write it well. We’ll consider the importance of character and persona in writing about self, and structure, both in essay writing and book-length projects. These key three subjects will be woven together with other important elements of memoir and creative nonfiction that include scene-setting, sensual vivid writing, storytelling, critical distance and ethics.
Whether you’re interested in recording experience to pass on to future generations, or if your ambition is to reach a wider audience with publishable work, this course will be useful to you.
This course is open to beginners and experienced writers. It's asynchronous (so you can log in and add to the discussion whenever you want) with weekly ‘windows’ of when you should read assignments, upload your work or offer and receive feedback. Your course tutor, Lily Dunn, will upload a new assignment every two weeks for the first six weeks.
Lily Dunn is a novelist and memoirist. Her first novel Shadowing the Sun was published by Portobello Books (2007) and she has recently finished her memoir, STARMAN, essays from which have been published by many publications. She is co-founder of London Lit Lab and has been teaching a variation of this memoir course for many years. .
Course dates: January 11th – March 7th 2021
Location: Online via Slack
Cost: £205
Further details and to book here