24PearlStreet Workshops and Events
LIVE via Zoom: 1pm-3pm (Eastern Time)
All family stories are ghost stories. There are the ghosts of our relatives and loved ones, now passed, and the ghosts of the selves we once were. I believe the only way to cease feeling haunted by our stories is by calling those ghosts to surface through the power of our remembering. And the only way to make peace with those ghosts is by making meaning from these memories.
In this instructor-facilitated, peer-driven workshop we’ll explore the various complexities of writing about family—the opportunities, the challenges, and the benefits. Drawing on work by Grace Talusan, Justin Torres, Victoria Chang, Jesmyn Ward, Nick Flynn, and others, we’ll investigate how different writers bring themselves and family members vividly to life, while also applying the perspective needed to turn these portraits into pieces that will resonate with readers. We will then use a mix of generative exercises and on the spot feedback to produce our own stories.
This two-hour course meets every day for five days and is designed both for those who are just beginning to write nonfiction and those who have drafts they want to deepen.
Biography
Alysia Abbott
's memoir, Fairyland, was a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, and was named Best Book of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and Shelf Awareness. Fairyland has been translated into Polish, Spanish, Italian, and French and has been awarded the ALA Stonewall Award and the Madame Figaro “Prix de l'Héroïne” Literary Prize. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, TriQuarterly, Lit Hub, Vogue, and elsewhere. Formerly the Director of the Boston Literary District, she now leads the Memoir Incubator Program at GrubStreet in Boston.
