ABOUT THE WORKSHOPS
Whether you're an established writer looking to expand your range or just starting to think about a career in writing, the Making Memoir Creative Nonfiction Writing Institute will give you concrete tips for making your writing stronger.
Registration is limited to ensure personal attention from workshop leaders.
COURSES AND INSTRUCTORS
Friday, July 13
The Five R's of Memoir
Lee Gutkind
9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
$150
In this intense, day-long course, Lee Gutkind will define the genre and present all the basic elements of memoir, including structure, voice, tone, writing in scenes and using background information and descriptions. This course will also include a discussion of ethical issues inherent to memoir writing, as well as tips for marketing your finished memoir, whether book- or essay-length.
Learn the basics from the master—the writer and editor who inspired the movement that made creative nonfiction the fastest-growing genre in the publishing industry.
Lee Gutkind has pioneered the teaching of creative nonfiction, conducting workshops and presenting readings throughout the United States. Former director of the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh and currently Professor of English there, Gutkind is also founder and director of the 412 Pittsburgh Creative Nonfiction Festival. Gutkind is also the author or editor of over a dozen books, as well as the editor and founder of Creative Nonfiction.
Saturday, July 14
Workshop with the Godfather
Lee Gutkind
9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
$250
Memoirs-in-progress will be discussed and possibilities for revision identified and analyzed. Writers may submit up to 10 double-spaced pages in advance to share with other members of the workshop.
Please email your work (up to 10 double-spaced pages) to julyworkshop[at]creativenonfiction.org, attached as a Word or text document, by July 1. Manuscripts will be emailed out to all workshop participants as soon as possible.
NOTE: This workshop is for advanced writers only. The instructor reserves the right to reject a registrant (and refund the registration fee) on the basis of the work submitted.
Lee Gutkind was dubbed "the Godfather behind creative nonfiction" by Vanity Fair magazine. He has pioneered the teaching of creative nonfiction, conducting workshops and presenting readings throughout the United States. Former director of the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh and currently Professor of English there, Gutkind is also founder and director of the 412 Pittsburgh Creative Nonfiction Festival. Gutkind is also the author or editor of over a dozen books, as well as the editor and founder of Creative Nonfiction.
Working with Fragments of Memory
Floyd Skloot
9 a.m. to 12 noon
$75
Memory typically forms and is retained in flashpoint images, discrete moments, atmospheric impressions, bits of information. The art of writing nonfiction based on memory is the art of shaping these fragments into a coherent narrative. This course will focus on the elements that lend cohesion and structure to fragments of memory, exploring the writer's technical resources for such work. We will consider how to capture memory; the function of distinctive voice as an organizing principle; the use of dialogue and scenes in fleshing out memory; the quest for truth; and the role freshness of language plays in being honest with memory. We will also talk about the memoirist's "way of life": how a writer views experience, finds and pursues a subject, and incorporates writing into daily life.
Floyd Skloot is a nonfiction writer, poet and novelist whose work has appeared in such distinguished magazines as the New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Poetry, American Scholar, The Georgia Review, Sewanee Review, Southern Review, Boulevard, Creative Nonfiction and Shenandoah. His books include the memoirs In the Shadow of Memory and A World of Light.
(Register for the Memory & Characterization Package and attend both Working with Fragments of Memory and The Art and Craft of Characterization in Memoir with a savings of $25) [Note: this offer no longer available.]
The Art and Craft of Characterization in Memoir
Dinty W. Moore
1 to 4 p.m.
$75
Please note: as of Friday, June 29, this program is full.
The people we write about in memoir are real, and our descriptions of them are true, but these people we write about—including the author/narrator/self—still function as characters on the page. The challenge is to bring them to life through their actions, reactions, dialogue and intimate detail. This seminar will explore strategies used by memoirists and include exercises designed to increase the writer's skill at transforming complex flesh-and-blood individuals into words, sentences and scenes.
Dinty W. Moore is a professor of English at Ohio University and the publisher of Brevity, an online journal of concise literary nonfiction. His fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Philadelphia Inquirer Sunday Magazine, Arts & Letters, The Georgia Review, Fourth Genre, Utne Reader and numerous other journals and magazines. He is also the author of two books of nonfiction, The Accidental Buddhist and The Emperor's Virtual Clothes; a collection of stories, Toothpick Men; and a textbook, The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction.
(Register for the Memory & Characterization Package and attend both Working with Fragments of Memory and The Art and Craft of Characterization in Memoir with a savings of $25) [Note: this offer no longer available.]
To register for courses, please visit our on-line store or click on the links below. You must register by July 1. Please email any questions about the workshops or the registration process to institutes[at]creativenonfiction.org.
To register for "Workshopping with the Godfather," please email your work (up to 10 double-spaced pages) to julyworkshop[at]creativenonfiction.org, as a Word or text document, by July 1. Manuscripts will be emailed out to all workshop participants as soon as possible.
JULY 2007 INSTITUTES
The Five R's of Memoir.......................................................$150 Full
Workshop with the Godfather..............................................$250 Full
Working with Fragments of Memory......................................$75 Full
The Art and Craft of Characterization in Memoir...................$75 Full
Memory & Characterization Package..................................$125 Full
(includes Working with Fragments of Memory and Characterization in Memoir)
All courses and lectures will be held in the excellent and comfortable classroom facilities at Pittsburgh Filmmakers, 477 Melwood Ave, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Please be advised that lunch will not be provided. Food is available in the surrounding neighborhood, or you may bring a lunch.
