Check out our Fall 2025 Course: Back to the Basics
BACK TO THE BASICS is inspired somewhat in reaction to all of the experimental and evolutionary (and revolutionary!) work we’ve been seeing and championing in the memoir-writing space in recent years. We love the trends we’re seeing—the opening up to new forms and influences from other genres—and we know how much the foundations of good craft matters. It’s that old saying—you have to know the rules to break them!
If you are ready to reset, refresh, or brush up on what you already know with some of the best author-teachers around, join us this September and October for this six-week course. We’re also offering a supplementary reading group, WHERE IT ALL BEGAN, in November where we’ll tackle four of the foundational memoirs of our time: The Liars’ Club (Mary Karr), Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt), The Color of Water (James McBride), and This Boy’s Life (Tobias Wolff). Come revel in memoir with us this fall!
• Scene Foundations, with Jeannine Ouellette, author of The Part That Burns
• Action and Conflict, with Piper Kerman, author of Orange Is the New Black
• Character and Characterization, with Ashley C. Ford, author of Somebody’s Daughter
• Memory and the Narrative Lens, with Linda Joy Myers, co-host of Magic of Memoir
• Reflection and Takeaway, with Brooke Warner, co-host of Magic of Memoir
• Choosing Which Scenes to Write, with E.J. Koh, author of The Magical Language of Others
