Memoir Workshop: Telling Stories, Finding Meaning

ZOOM SIGN UP/REGISTRATION –

In writing memoir, we are telling stories from our lives, but how do we decide which ones to tell?  And why should anyone care?  In this workshop, participants will practice the art of telling stories to the page, and begin to develop their own storytelling voices.  They will learn ways to generate and organize story ideas, will create story maps, retrieve memories, and find thematic threads they would like to follow.  We will read two short excerpts from memoirs as prompts for writing short pieces which will be shared (if they prefer not to share, that’s fine). They will learn a way of “revisioning” their work that will include both cutting out the extraneous and deepening the story with images. We’ll discuss the possibilities of form, the struggle for meaning, and how creative storytelling and truth intersect.

Materials:

If we were live, I’d bring some materials, but since we’re working virtually, here’s what you’ll need: 

1) Favorite writing tools – eg: pens, pencils, paper, notebook.  2) Something to draw with – if you have crayons or markers, that’s great, but anything you have is fine. 3)  Drawing or printer paper or other paper without lines. (No drawing ability required.) You may want more room than 8 x 11, – you could use the backs of wrapping paper, paper bag, etc – be creative   4)  If you have some index cards, that would be great, but paper or a notebook is fine if you don’t have them. 

Cheryl Savageau (French/Abenaki) is the author of Out of the Crazywoods,  a memoir that navigates her experience of living with bipolar/manic depressive illness; and three collections of poetry: Mother/Land, Dirt Road Home, which was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize; and Home Country.  She has won Fellowships in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Artists Fellowship Program, and is a three-time fellow at MacDowell.  Her children’s book, Muskrat Will Be Swimming, was a Smithsonian Notable Book and won the Skipping Stones Award for children’s environmental literature and the Wordcraft Circle’s Best Children’s Book of the Year Award.  She is former editor of Dawnland Voices 2.0. She teaches Indigenous literatures and creative writing at the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College.

OUT OF THE CRAZYWOODS by CHERYL SAVAGEAU 

visit here to order book: https://cherylsavageaublog.wordpress.com/