Class Description
The opening pages of a memoir are crucial. Your beginning can leave a reader spellbound, or cause them to abandon the book altogether. And yet, beginnings are notoriously difficult to master. This seminar, designed for those who’ve completed a memoir draft, will give you actionable craft techniques for honing the opening pages of your manuscript. We’ll discuss how to establish the stakes early, build tension, and introduce the “world” and characters of your memoir.
Through a series of in-class exercises and readings, you’ll learn actionable ways to strengthen the opening of your memoir. Expect to leave this class with a toolbox of craft techniques and a detailed plan for moving toward revision.
Make sure to check out part two of this series, Memoir Revision Essentials: Endings.
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.