“We tell ourselves stories in order to live,” Joan Didion has famously said. Don’t we know it. We tell ourselves stories to find order in chaos, to make sense of what may otherwise feel too big or incomprehensible to bear. Have you been on a wild ride lately? Maybe you’ve faced an unexpected or unprecedented event. Or perhaps you’ve experienced a hardship that brought you right to the edge of what you imagined you could handle. Or maybe you’ve found yourself questioning who you are and what you stand for in a new and unfamiliar landscape. You don’t know what just happened. You don’t yet know what it means. You have questions. And not just a few. Good! That’s a perfect place to start. This course, for writers of all levels, is part writing workshop, part philosophical inquiry, and part creative playground. Daily prompts and exercises will help you externalize your thoughts and emotions and transform them into prose. We’ll place a strong emphasis on stories as vehicles for meaning making, and even dip into the psychology of what’s called “sense-making” to help you understand your own narrative impulses. Arrive with your half-formed thoughts, your confusions, your unresolved conflicts, and your existential questions. Expect to return home with at least one new piece of work in progress. As we generate new material, we’ll allow our minds to explore big ideas on the page, and we won’t force phony resolutions. Honesty and authenticity will be our guides. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our week.

Memoirists face two essential tasks: First, to tell the story of plotted action, the narrative of what happened. And second, to tell the story of one’s own change and growth over time and reflecting on what it all means. That second story is where the author’s larger message is conveyed, elevating one person’s experience from the unique and personal to the universal and shared. It reveals what your story is about. But how do we bring that deeper message up to the surface and articulate it to readers in a meaningful way? And how can we expect to achieve this, if we haven’t yet identified what that larger message is? As Vivian Gornick has emphasized, what happened to an author is not what matters. What matters is what the author makes of those experiences. This class will help you clarify what you make of your own story, and give you tools for sharing these insights with readers. We’ll identify the underlying themes and archetypes of your nonfiction narrative. We’ll also work on creating passages of reflection and analysis that will resonate deeply with readers. Come to this intermediate-level workshop with pages you’ve already polished or first-draft work you’re ready to revise. You’ll generate new writing through in- and out-of-class assignments. Plan to share some pages during the week, and to offer other participants as much as you’ll receive. In this workshop, we will generate new writing through guided exercises and prompts; offer feedback/first impressions on writing you produce in our week; workshop writing you bring from home. Bringing writing from home is welcome but not required.