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Winter 2009 Workshops at Writers & Books Creative Non-FictionRecollections of My Family: Writing Down Oral History
In this class we will take passed-down stories of family members and transpose them into short stories, poems, and dialogues; using photos of family members for inspiration, each student will compile a book of recollections using various story-telling techniques. We will compose during class by hand or on computers, print out the stories for revision during the week. We’ll scan original pictures into a book to match the recollections without having to commandeer the original photos.
Course Cancelled Literary Travel Writing
Are you a traveler? Do you like to document your travels by writing in a journal and/or taking photos? Learn how to research, document, and write about these excursions in a literary manner. As examples, we will read excerpts from the works of such masters as William Least Heat Moon, Bruce Chatwin, Paul Theroux, and John McPhee, as well as fictionalized works from Tom Bodett, Paul Bowles, Virginia Woolf, and Jack Kerouac. There will be opportunity to read and discuss students’ work in a nurturing and helpful atmosphere.
Course Cancelled Writing Local History
Western New York is extraordinarily fertile ground for history, much of it still waiting to be told to a new generation of readers. In this class, history writer Chuck Lyons will teach you how to follow the trail of history, access records and other evidence, and how to shape it into a story that will bring it back to life and grab the attention of editors, whether that story be one of general interest or a more personal or family story.
Writing Your Memoirs: The Surprise Story of Your Life
If you’re interested in writing about your life but don’t know where to start, this is the class for you. We’ll discuss different forms of memoir and do writing exercises that will help you find the stories inside the flow of events in your life. Writing does more than put down what you already know; it helps you discover new meanings. We’ll learn the basics of how to “show, not tell” so that your writing can come alive. You’ll learn how to use dialog, description, action, inner thoughts and summary the way a fiction writer would to write compelling stories.
Writing Your Memoirs: The Surprise Story of Your Life
Same as the above class, but different time.
Leaving the Legacy of Your Heart
What’s most important to you in your life? What lessons have your learned? What do you believe in? What parts of your inner life do you want to pass on to your family? In this class, we’ll do writing exercises that help you examine your values and beliefs, discover where they came from, and what your relationship to them has been. You’ll learn how to write the stories of times you had to accept or reject certain ways of being. You’ll create a story of your life that comes from the heart.
The Personal Essay
A cross between memoir and essay, the personal essay is the perfect genre for connecting your personal experience with the wider events and issues in the world. We’ll do writing exercises that help you find your material. We’ll study samples of personal essays to learn the structures and techniques of creative non-fiction. Then you’ll write at least one essay that includes your experiences, observations and opinions on a topic of your choice.
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