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  • Seminar
  • Online: Zoom
  • Adult (18+)

Beyond the 'Me-moir' Essay

No Longer Enrolling

  • $130.00 Non-Member
  • $110.00 Member

Class Description

By definition, a memoir is a written account of one's memory of certain events or people. And a personal essay is, by its nature, personal. But there are other approaches, tools, and techniques we can use to go beyond the narrow “I.” In this seminar, we’ll examine work by such writers as Bill Bryson, John Edgar Wideman, Zadie Smith, and others, gaining insight into ways to meld the “me” of “memoir” with materials drawn from other sources, including interviews, research, and family history; stunt journalism, reportage, and travel writing; riffing and musing; diaries, medical records, websites, and other documents; and second- and third-person point of view experiments. We’ll explore formal strategies for how to structure your essays to include such materials and approaches. You’ll leave having written passages toward a draft of an essay that escapes the perils of solipsistic navel-gazing to explore not only yourself but something beyond yourself.

Scholarships Format/Location

Thanks to the excellent literary citizenship of our donors, scholarships are available for all GrubStreet classes. To apply, click the gray "APPLY FOR SCHOLARSHIP" button. In order to be considered for a scholarship, you must complete your application at least one week before the start date of a class. Please await our scholarship committee's decision before registering for the class. We cannot hold spots in classes, so the sooner you apply, the better. Scholarships cannot be applied retroactively.

For more detailed information about GrubStreet scholarships, including how to contribute to scholarship funds for other students, click here.

This class will take place using Zoom videoconferencing. After registering, a yellow Resources tab will appear in this section containing a link to join class. Please note that you will need to be logged into view the Resources tab.

Zoom Participation:

In our experience, the intimate nature of a writing workshop benefits from on-camera participation. Students are of course welcome to turn their camera off whenever they need to, but it is a community norm for cameras to be on most of the time. You can learn more about using Zoom here.

Zoom Accessibility:

You can enable closed captioning at any time during the meeting by clicking the CC button at the bottom of the screen. If you'd like to access the transcript after class, please make sure to let your instructor ahead of time that you'd like a copy.