Memoir: How to Tell Your Story

Each of us has a story to tell. We all have memories. But how do you take what you’ve experienced and turn it into something more than a conversation in a bar? How do you find the weight that is in each of our lives and stories?

In this workshop we’ll focus on transforming the personal into something that reaches beyond.

Here’s a loose outline of how we’ll approach it.

Week 1

What is a story? What makes the telling a story and not just words spilling onto a page?

Week 2

How to get at that story that burns within?

Week 3

The hook, part 1: First impressions are critical

Week 4

The hook, part 2: Developing the critical eye

Week 5

Beyond copy editing: How do you know which voice is the right voice? You have to listen carefully. The story knows.

Week 6

Attack 1: You’ve written your story. We’re here to tell you we don’t like it. What are you going to do about it?

Week 7

Attack 2: Why is the story not working – or, better still, why is it working?

Week 8

Writer vs Author: writing to write or writing to get published. Why it matters.

Along the way, there will be exercises, discussions, writing, revising, reading of each other’s work, and good fun.

Eddy L. Harris is a perpetual traveler, a filmmaker and the author of seven critically acclaimed books, all of which partake of memoir, adventure tale, travelogue and cultural reportage.

He spent four years as Writer-in-Residence at Washington University teaching Black American Literature and writing classes structured as workshops. That was followed by a stint on the Nez Perce Indian reservation in northern Idaho and a documentary project he wrote and presented for BBC-Wales: Roots In Wales.

In 2014 he repeated his canoe journey along the Mississippi River which resulted in the award-winning documentary film River to the Heart, which he wrote, produced, and directed.

He has worked most recently as professor of English and Writer-in-Residence at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia

As USA Today put it: “Eddy Harris isn’t your everyday tourist. His travels almost always have a purpose, and that purpose is to write about not only what he sees, but what he feels.”