Online Residency: Finding the Drama in Memoir

3 Credits.

This class will be conducted as a generative writing seminar and will run as a seven-day online residency taking place via Zoom. Every day, the instructor will offer guided prompts, discuss craft techniques, and invite students to talk about writing challenges they’re facing. The class will cover concepts such as: the self on the page, narrative and reflective arcs, characters other than ourselves, scene-building, artful telling, research tactics, and backstory and front story. Together, students will explore the possibilities of dramatic presentation—how to take a seemingly small-stakes memory, and very little action, and methodically create the conditions for conflict. To accomplish this, students will study excerpts from contemporary memoirs and follow writing prompts inspired by each. The course will run from July 24-July 31 and Zoom-based attendance is required each day, with time set aside for generating work. This course fills an elective requirement.