Nonfiction
September 7-11, 2026
Tiered Tuition
$250-$600 Reserve My Spot
About the Offering
September 7th to 11th at 10am to 12pm (Eastern)
Annie Dillard once said, You have to take pains not to hang on the reader’s arms and say, “And then I did THIS and it was SO interesting.” What is it, exactly, that makes personal narrative truly engaging? How do you know what is best kept between the covers of a journal versus crafted into narrative? How do we navigate the mine-field of story ownership and permission-to-write when crafting a narrative that involves others? What makes great memoir what it is versus simply a recollection of experience or an information dump?
In this generative memoir workshop, I will explore the concept of motivation and curation in the writing of memoir; together, we will focus on the separation of wheat from chaff within the narrative, and learn how to find the kernel–the heart of the story–that teems with life, even at its most deceptively subdued. Through readings, exercises, and the sharing of work, you will practice writing with intimacy and clarity, and learn to hone–and trust–your own distinct voices, and to find the extraordinary in the mundane.
Materials Needed
No specific materials needed for this offering.
About the Instructor/Moderator
Elissa Altman is the author of the upcoming Where I Used to Be: Meditations on the Convergence of Art-Making and Grief, the hybrid memoir Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create, and the critically-acclaimed memoirs Motherland, Treyf, and Poor Man's Feast. An award-winning contributor to publications including The Bitter Southerner, Orion, Narrative, LitHub, and the Washington Post, she is the winner of a James Beard Award in narrative food writing, and a finalist for a Lambda Award in memoir, and The Frank McCourt Prize in memoir. She teaches memoir and nonfiction writing at Fine Arts Work Center, Castle Hill Center for the Arts, College of William and Mary, and beyond.
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