Writing Family Memoirs: Getting Started
It can be difficult to know where to begin with family memoirs. With our own first memory or the birth of our first child or the stories our grandparents told us? Personal histories are vast and sprawling, full of nooks and crannies and tangents and possibilities. We want to tell the most meaningful parts, but sometimes the backstory necessary to get there seems daunting.
In this workshop we will begin with writing activities designed to help quiet our analytical mind and instead engage playfully with memory and imagination. Often the specific images that call to us during creative practice pave the way to the bigger stories we long to tell.
We will come together as a supportive community of writers, a place where we can try out ideas, listen to each other’s stories, and discuss ways we make space for creativity in our lives. The goal of the class will be for each participant to begin a family memoir project of their choosing and to leave class with an abundance of resources, tools, and inspiration to continue writing. Participants will also have the opportunity to hold an individual conference with the instructor. Each class will include some writing time away from the Zoom screen. No prior creative writing experience is needed.
Laura Stavoe has taught creative writing to students of all ages and in diverse venues including urban and rural schools, summer writing camps, juvenile detention centers, community college classrooms, cancer treatment centers and the slot canyons of southern Utah.
Laura’s essays and stories about family and other loves have appeared in Parents, Parenting, FamilyFun, Sunset, Horizon Air, Ladies Home Journal, Paddler, Mothering, BrainChild and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a memoir about her mother.
Contact laura@laurastavoe.com to enroll or to learn more.