Memoir 101: Finding Your Theme

We’ve moved online! All workshops are conducted via Zoom, a virtual platform that allows you to participate in exercises and contribute to group conversation. For morning and noontime workshops, your Zoom link will be sent the day before; for afternoon workshops, one hour in advance; and for evening workshops, between 5:15 pm and one hour before your workshop starts.

Member Price: $30
Deadline to Register: October 7, 5 pm
Instructor: Anais Salibian

In this workshop, we will explore what memoir is and isn’t, the variety of forms it can take, and the relationship between memoir and truthful memory. Drawing from Your Life as Story, by Tristine Rainer, participants will engage with writing exercises to identify a theme and find the story they want to tell. We’ll look at how theme is introduced in the first paragraph or page of several memoirs, including The Glass ,by Jeanette Walls; Ghostbread, by Sonja Livingston; and Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

With a Master’s degree in English literature and a Certification in Secondary Education, Anais Salibian taught high school English and Drama for five years. She had been a massage therapist since 1981, using a mind/body modality that is particularly suited to help people overcome trauma and connect with their deeper selves. She has taught creative writing classes at Writers & Books since 1989 and has published creative nonfiction. In 2004, she received the Writers & Books Teacher of Adults Award for the Creation and Appreciation of Literature.