I am a teaching artist, as we are called now, at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, as well as an Advisor in Creative Nonfiction for Foreword: A Writing Apprenticeship. This summer I am teaching "The Personal Essay."

The Personal Essay
The personal essay is a complex but highly satisfying literary form. It draws on both emotion and intellect and uses intimate experience to illuminate public issues. It can seem meandering and shapeless in form yet requires careful narrative control. Essayists have the privilege of raising questions, coming at them from all possible angles, and leaving them unanswered. A popular genre in the U.S., the personal essay has ancient roots and crosses cultures. Come and give it a try (French essai). Bring along a copy of Phillip Lopate’s The Art of the Personal Essay. There will be reading and writing assignments and the opportunity for mutual advice.
Tuesdays, June 15 – August 10, 6:00-8:00 pm.

I will also be teaching a week-long memoir workshop in a new summer writing program at Madeline Island School of the Arts on Lake Superior.

From Memory to Memoir

Wherever your writing lies along the path from impulse to completion, this course on the memoir will propel you further toward your goal. Beginning memoirists will especially benefit from writing exercises meant to awaken and shape and find meaning in memories. Those of you in mid-draft may draw valuable assistance from discussions of narrative voice, story and thematic arcs, and structural choices. All of us will find common ground in our passion for recalling and giving coherence to our experiences, as well as the familiar trepidations about violating the privacy of those we have lived among. The week will include class sessions, private writing time, and a one-on-one meeting with the teacher. Bring your writing, your questions, and a couple of favorite memoirs. The teacher also recommends that you buy or borrow Judith Barrington’s Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art and William Zinsser’s Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir.