24PearlStreet Workshops and Events
LIVE via ZOOM: 6pm-8pm (Eastern Time)
Nathalie Sarraute said, “Poetry is what makes the invisible appear.” Of course this is the goal of memoir as well. What drives memoir? What questions fuel it? How does a memoirist select a narrative from the whole of their life? How do we choose a compelling subject? What form best serves the material? What can we borrow from the practice of poetry to access the subconscious? What narrative techniques are essential for clarity?
This intensive workshop meets for one week, two-hours a day, and is designed for writers looking for new ways into writing the stories that matter most to them.
We’ll work to discover our individual obsessions and to clarify the questions that propel our writing. This course is generative and includes experimentation with form. We’ll look at selections of work from other writers including Dorothy Allison, Chris Dennis, Nick Flynn, Tessa Fontaine, Deborah Taffa, Natalie Kusz ,and Jesmyn Ward.
We’ll also use photographs to unlock memory and to look for points of connection between the seemingly divergent, exploring the power of metaphor as well. By week’s end, we will each have written the draft of a new memoir piece, and on Friday, we’ll have a celebratory class reading of works-in-progress with the opportunity for verbal feedback for all who wish to participate.
Biography
Kelle Groom's newest book is How to Live: A Memoir-in-Essays (Tupelo Press, October 2023). Her memoir, I Wore the Ocean in the Shape of a Girl (Simon & Schuster 2011 / pb 2012), is a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice selection, a Library Journal Best Memoir, Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Month, Oprah O Magazine selection, and Oxford American Editor's Pick. Her four poetry collections are Spill, (Anhinga Press), Five Kingdoms (Anhinga), Luckily (Anhinga), and Underwater City (University Press of Florida). Her work has appeared in AGNI, American Poetry Review, Best American Poetry, New England Review, The New Yorker, New York Times, Ploughshares, and Poetry, and her nonfiction and photography will be featured in Virginia Quarterly Review’s “True Story” this Fall. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow in Prose, Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Nonfiction, and two-time Florida Book Award winner in Poetry, Groom's honors also include fellowships from Black Mountain Institute, University of Nevada-Las Vegas in partnership with the Library of Congress, Civitella Ranieri, Djerassi Resident Artists Program, James Merrill House, Millay Colony for the Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, American Antiquarian Society, and Ucross Foundation, as well as two Florida Book Awards, a State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs grant, and Barbara Deming Memorial Fund grant. Groom was previously Distinguished Writer-in-Residence and Assistant Professor of Humanities at Sierra Nevada College, Lake Tahoe. She has also served as Nonfiction Editor for AGNI Magazine and Poetry Editor of The Florida Review.
