This is an exciting time for memoir writers because when it comes to form, everything is up for grabs.
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Some lines from recent memoirs. Left to right:
Mary Norris, Ruth Reichl, Ann Patchett.* |
If you're a songwriter, you can write lyrical musings like
Patti Smith's
M Train. For experimental writers, there's more free-form,
surreal work such as Maxine Hong Kingston's
Woman Warrior. Prefer pictures to
words? Try creating a graphic memoir like Alison Bechdel's
Fun
Home. Letter aficionados can put together a collection of their
own correspondence, foodies can structure their reminiscences around
recipes, and people with more out-there interests can surprise us with
their passion for jigsaw puzzles or punctuation rules.
At the memoir table, there's room for everyone -- including writers of
traditional works that begin with childhood and move on to adult
adventures. Age, too, is no barrier for contemporary memoir. We all
have a wealth of stories, whether you’re a recent college grad or a retiree.
Of course the current freedom in memoir writing can also be a curse.
Advice-givers always say to write what you know, but with so many topics
and forms to choose from, where do you start? You may think you want to write
about your trip to India then realize you'd rather focus on your college
romances or the grandmother who taught you to golf. With first-person
writing, we often have two kinds of memories: the ones we want to write about
and the ones that want to be written.
For female writers who want help getting started, I'm teaching a class on
Creative Memoir for Women this fall. In this group, we’ll read excerpts
from a wide range of personal narratives, then we’ll mine our own memories
as we write from prompts, generating material for potential essays, stories,
poems, journal entries or hybrids of these genres. I'll also suggest
assignments to help each participant keep her pen moving outside of class.
Whether you want to record your memories for future generations or you have a
yen to explore your experiences through writing, I invite you to join this
encouraging group and see what rises to the surface.
Creative Writing for Women
Mondays, October 3 - November 14
10 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
$12 to drop in for a class or $70 for all 7 weeks
All experience levels welcome
Taborspace, 5441 SE Belmont, Portland
* Mary Norris, Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 2015.
Ruth Reichl, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Live, Random House, New York, 2015.
Ann Patchett, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Harper Collins, New York, 2013.
Graphic by F. Ferguson, 2016.
On Saturday evening, I had the pleasurable experience of participating in a feminist poetry reading at Tsunami Books in Eugene, Oregon. My son and I took the bus there from his apartment. Since the bus stop was several blocks away from the bookstore, we walked the rest of the way, plunging into a rain storm. The wind kept blowing my umbrella inside out, and it rained so hard we had to leap over the little lakes that formed at every intersection. By the time we got to the reading, my socks were wet inside my shoes, but I couldn't have cared less because everything about the evening was pure magic. Tsunami Books is a small store filled with new and used books, greeting cards, calendars and even LP's. In the back, it has an intimate space for readings and other events - small enough that I could feel the words of the other readers resonate in my bones.
