STORIES OF OUR LIVES: A MEMOIR WRITING WORKSHOP WITH CARMEN BUGAN
In this workshop participants will deepen their technical skills in writing about life experiences. The practice-based course comprises nine two-hour sessions, each focused on a major aspect of composing a story based on true life events. We discuss carefully curated examples from memoirs and work with timed writing exercises. The material produced will help generate memoir chapters, personal essays, or letters. A suggested bibliography is provided at the onset of the course. However, we start by reading an interview with Isabel Allende writing in the wake of losing her daughter.
Session 1: October 22
Timelines: Our lives are full of stories but one of them will become the backbone of a book. Where does this story fit within the timeline of one’s life? Where does it fit within the timeline of one’s community, and the larger world? And how do we work out a sense of time inside of this story? Timelines help the writer gain a larger perspective on their stories. In this initial workshop we create three timelines: the timeline of your life with its chronology; the timeline of your story as it fits into your life; and a timeline of major world events that have left a mark on you. We will think of both Chronos (the ticking clock that makes every day accountable) and Kairos (that fortuitous or disastrous moment when everything converges into an inevitable change) as we formulate a sense of time/ and timing in our stories.
Session 2: October 29
A sense of place and displacement: There is hardly a story without a place: at some point we think of childhood as “another country”, the country of birth becomes “a country of the mind” (as Heaney has said of his), a house becomes a museum, a tree becomes a hiding hole, memory becomes a trapdoor. In this session we explore various places in our lives from two perspectives: places of safety and connections, where the world within fits harmoniously with the outside world; and places of disconnection and threat. All these places have prominent parts in our life stories and a logic of their own as we search for meaning.
Session 3: November 5
Memorable characters: Coincidences, accidents, speech mannerisms, and self-contradictions are a few of the things that make a character memorable. But a character in memoir is “self-reporting”—so what are the challenges of writing about oneself to the wider public? Who are the powerful people in our lives and how did they shape us? What are some of the public characters (politicians, artists, writers) that have come to mark you as a person? We discuss how to approach writing about people we know and the ethics of writing about family.
Session 4: November 12
The author, the narrator, and the writing voice: Who is the ideal reader of memoir and how does the notion of readership shape the notion of authorship? In this workshop we look at perception and self-perception in writing and talk about the various ways in which we use our personal stories to talk publicly about things that affect the larger communities. We also talk about memoir writing as a personal and private act: the writing for oneself, rather than writing for publication. We tackle the thorny issue of self-exposure, especially as we write about our close relationships. Can memoir be a sort of public confession, like St Augustine’s Confessions about his faith? Or can it be a series of letters to the people who have shaped our lives? Isabell Allende worked out the relationship with her reader like this: “When I sit down and write while thinking about someone, the writing is much easier.” Is it?
Session 5: November 19
Plots: In this session we play around with plots: trial, journey, moments-in-time, siege narratives, and the classic Aristotelian plot line. What is an inevitable action and what is an inevitable consequence? Climax, turning point, and the Major Dramatic Question, as well as the question about dramatic irony are discussed. Do our stories fall into timeless kinds of stories, such a “life journeys” or “quests”? How do we shape the incoherence of our days into a story? The writing exercises in this session will revolve around verbs and action.
Session 6: November 26
Description: The art of description--sensory, emotional, intellectual—takes practice and sensitivity. The description of a setting can create a feeling, the portrait of a person can lead to a portrait of a mind, and so forth. In this session we discuss ways in which we can invite and truly transport the reader into the worlds that have shaped us. We practice writing with figurative language to make the language more vibrant and evocative.
Session 7: December 3
Theme: So, what is memoir writing really about? Does it explore the larger themes that shape families and generations, such as resilience, anger, grief, passion, hardship? Usually, the themes rise to the surface unbidden, but it’s good to think about them at the outset too. Is your story dealing with political themes and how do you plan on handling those? Editors, publishers, booksellers, and librarians love themes and they usually request keywords from authors, to help them categorize the books for their readers. Are there certain keywords that help you decide on the thematic language in your story?
Session 8: December 10
Memories and dreams: In this session we discuss and write about insistent memories, about ways to recall events with the help from objects, photographs, and imagined conversations with people who are no longer a part of our lives. We also write about recurring dreams and the way they color the waking times. We explore the more subtle thematic aspects of writing that emerges from dreams. We also write about the otherworldliness of everyday, about those moments that are so beautiful, they feel extraordinary. We probe the life of the mind and the rhythm of the heart just below our waking life.
Session 9: December 17
Nature and wildlife encounters: Most often, when thinking about memoirs, we focus on major events, unusual relationships, or moments of great transitions. We focus on people. But there are gardens, walks in nature, the unusual birds that sometimes seem to land in our yards out of nowhere, or the creatures that we come face to face during a hike: a moose, a snake, a heron, a frog, or a squirrel. Or maybe we find ourselves having to wait out a massive fog on a mountain hike, and we literally experience walking with our “head in the clouds.” As the fog lifts, it uncovers breathtaking vistas. The natural world, the seasons, all give us fresh perspectives on the events, or even the course of our lives. We will be on Zoom for this workshop, but I will invite you to go over memories of windswept walking paths, storms on the beach, or an encounter with a fledgling that fell out of the nest. How do these encounters and experiences add texture to the writing?
Suggested reading:
Cloistered, by Catherine Coldstream, life in a monastery and the escape from it
Skybound, by Rebecca Loncraine, flying in gliders around the world after chemotherapy
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, by Laurie Lee, walking from the English countryside to the Southernmost point of Spain on the brink of the Civil War
What You Have Heard is True, by Carolyn Forche, innocent newly minted professor receives an unusual visit that changes her life
Where the Wild Winds Are, by Nick Hunt, chasing winds on foot around Europe
Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, walking up Everest and back and why we are drawn to the impossible
Prisons We Choose to Live Inside, by Doris Lessing, an important book of essays about the world outside that builds our inner worlds
And the technical texts:
Bell, J. and P. Magrs The Creative Writing Coursebook: Forty Authors Share Advice and Exercises for Fiction and Poetry. (London: Macmillan, 2001) [ISBN 9780333782255]
Cline, S. and C. Angier The Arvon Book of Life Writing: Writing Biography, Autobiography and Memoir. (London: Methuen Drama, 2010) [ISBN 9781408122716]
Karr, M. The Art of Memoir. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2016) [ISBN 978006222307]
Aspects of the Novel, by E.M. Forster, a wonderful series of lectures on writing fiction
Pricing
Sliding-Scale Member Rates
GWG offers a trust-based sliding scale to ensure equitable access. Participants are encouraged to select the pricing tier that best aligns with their financial circumstances.
Accessible rates support those with limited means, standard rates cover core costs, and pay-it-forward rates help fund subsidized places for others in the community.
Full series:
- Member – Pay It Forward: CHF 380
- Member – Standard: CHF 340
- Member – Accessible: CHF 300
- Non-Member: CHF 400
Two-Session Package:
- Member: CHF 65
- Non-Member: CHF 80
Carmen Bugan, George Orwell Prize Fellow, is the author of six poetry collections, among which is Lilies from America (a PBS Special Commendation). Her memoir, Burying the Typewriter, winner of the Breadloaf Nonfiction Prize, finalist in the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing, was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, and is now out in the Picador Collection as a “modern classic.” Bugan's monograph on Seamus Heaney and East European Poetry in Translation has received wide recognition. Her book, Poetry and the Language of Oppression (Oxford University Press, 2021), was named “an essential book for writers” by Poets & Writers; her book of poems, Time Being, was praised by the Irish Times poetry editor for its "disciplined precision." In her latest poetry Collection, Tristia, “Bugan deliberately echoes the eruptive and epiphanic moment in Yeats.” Bugan was a Creative Arts Fellow in Literature at Wolfson College, Oxford University, a Hawthornden Fellow, and a recipient of Arts Council England Individual Artist Grant. She has a doctorate in English literature from Balliol College, Oxford, UK, and currently teaches at the Gotham Writers Workshop in Manhattan and at the Poetry School in London.
