Writing the Past

Writing Family History Workshop

Perhaps you’ve come across a photo or a family heirloom that intrigues you. Maybe you’ve found your immigrant grandparents’ citizenship papers. Or perhaps you can’t stop thinking about the last time you saw Cousin Ellen at Aunt Helen’s funeral and the conversation did not go well. Maybe that story Uncle Irving told you about your great-grandparents still commands your attention. Or that cookbook your mother inherited that became the basis of holiday meals.

In each session, we’ll write to timed prompts to help you put your thoughts on the page. Family history can be preserved forever if someone, maybe you, writes it down.

52 Snapshots: Writing Micro Memoir

Using Sonja Livingston’s Fifty-two Snapshots: A Memoir Starter Kit as a guide, we’ll write in ten-minute sprints to create a collection of micro essays (about 300 words each). Sessions will last 90 minutes. Day and time for this workshop have not yet been set. If you’re interested, please let me know what days and times would work for you.
Sundays, 10:00 to 11:30 am ET, $35/session for $140 for four-week cycle

Submission Party!

Join fellow writers in a nurturing hour to send your literary work out into the world! At the onset of the hour, we’ll share our submission goals. Then we’ll go off to do the work and return to share and celebrate what we’ve accomplished.

Submission Strategies

In this session, you’ll identify opportunities to get your creative writing–fiction, nonfiction, and poetry–published in literary magazines through sites like Chill Subs, New Pages, and Duotrope.

Writing the Past Memoir Workshop

Memoirist Sue William Silverman writes in her craft book, Fearless Confessions, that memoir involves the connection between the voice of experience and the voice of innocence. We’ll write to a variety of prompts to bring these voices together with insight and respect. We’ll meet via Zoom for two hours each week in a four-week cycle.