ENG 2300 - Memoir Writing: Writing from Inside Out

The craft of personal writing turns the messy and elusive facts of our life experience to compelling account.  Our memories can be not merely “reduced” to writing but enlarged by it-we don’t just write what we know; we write to find out what we know.  We try to elicit and shape the vivid details of our life stories and see what coherence, resonance, and even self-discovery emerge.  Through writing assignments and selected readings, we seek in this workshop to discern what makes certain writing fresh, intimate, provocative, graceful, funny, poignant or otherwise effective.  Work is read aloud, in a congenial setting, with a focus on voice, pace, compression, metaphor, dialogue, point of entry, word choice, and other elements.  We explore what it is we like about certain work, how the work might be improved, and what challenges the author may have faced in the process of composition. Pre-requisite: A composition course.  

 

Anticipated Terms Offered: Varied