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 discussing confidentiality and ethical issues, but also the importance of internal distancing in relation to our creativity, and the process of creating something that is separate from its author.
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. It will also be a necessary online community of writers on a platform that enables much discussion and connectivity.
Creative nonfiction, also known as narrative nonfiction and literary nonfiction, uses literary technique to record factually accurate narratives. It is an increasingly popular genre and art form in a world that is looking for deeper meaning in its narratives. We will be discussing how fictional technique can be applied to nonfiction in order to make it more compelling. This course is open to beginners and experienced writers.
Course Outline
- Live introduction with author and teacher Lily Dunn on Zoom
- Four assignments, including reading material, discussion prompts and writing exercises
- Six sets of peer feedback on your work (two for each of the three shorter assignments)
- Detailed written feedback from the course tutor on your last assignment
- Live author Q&A session with Lily Dunn
- An online writing community, lasting beyond the end of the course
- An optional post-course private Zoom check-in/tutorial at extra cost
This course is eight weeks long and 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 assignments every two weeks. Including texts to read and discuss, teaching from Lily, and writing assignments. With the first three shorter exercises you will have a week to write each assignment and to upload it to the group. The group then has a week to give feedback on at least two other participants’ work – which is an integral part of the course, learning from close reading and commenting on others’ work. The final assignment will be longer, with two weeks dedicated writing time. Lily will be providing detailed feedback on this final assignment.
Course Content
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.
Learning Online
The course will take place online, in a closed group on a platform called Slack. You’ll need to have internet access at set times for uploading your work, but the rest of the time you can pick and choose when you log in. Slack is easy to use, and we’ll provide you with full instructions and guidance before the course starts. On Slack, we won’t have scheduled live chats (except the Introduction Zoom chat and the author Q&A), but there will be plenty of opportunity to interact with Lily and the other course participants in discussion threads, throughout the eight weeks.
Time Commitment
You should allow 3-4 hours per week for this course, for reading, writing and giving feedback to others.
