Instructor Rebecca van Laer is the author of two books: HOW TO ADJUST TO THE DARK (novella, Long Day Press, 2022), and CAT (memoir, Bloomsbury's Object Lessons series, forthcoming). Her fiction and essays appear in the New England Review, Joyland, TriQuarterly, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She holds a Ph.D. in English from Brown University, where she studied queer and feminist autobiography.

Memoir doesn’t always need to center around a life-changing turning point — sometimes, it’s a record of the everyday dramas of life and the way they accrue meaning. In this generative workshop, we’ll look at recent diaristic works as we mine our mundane experiences for narrative material.

Natalie Goldberg reminds us that memoir is not “a chronological pronouncement of the facts of your life,” but rather “the study of memory … an examination of the zigzag nature of how our mind works.”

Over the course of four weeks, we’ll consider how nonfiction can depart from conventional narrative, especially by embracing forms that unspool through fragments, juxtaposition, and dilated moments from everyday life.

Together, we’ll examine how writers from Jamaica Kincaid to Sheila Heti excavate everyday experience for pathos and shape it into compelling forms. In response, we’ll use material from our personal archives (diary entries, marginalia, text messages, emails, missives in the Notes app, etc.) as well as generate new material through generative writing exercises and homework assignments.

Students will have the opportunity to workshop resulting short essays in a supportive environment.

While our readings are focused on memoir, writers working on projects of all prose genres and lengths will gain new tools for finding inspiration from the everyday.

Readings may include excerpts from Victoria Chang, Dear Memory; Lydia Davis, The Cows; Sheila Heti, Alphabetical Diaries; Heidi Julavits, The Folded Clock; Jamaica Kincaid, My Garden (Book); Naomi Washer, Marginalia.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week 1: Attention

Week 2: Juxtaposition

Week 3: Conversations & Missives

Week 4: Patterns and Repetition

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• Enhanced attention to the everyday: Writers will learn to find the kernel for a longer piece in short observations and offhand writing. We’ll also work to develop the skill of close observation and description.
• Tools to dilate short pieces: Students will come away with a list of practical exercises for expanding a short piece of writing through association and juxtaposition.
• The ability to develop tension outside of conventional narratives: We’ll move away from the Hero’s Journey and other conventional three-act structures to consider how tension can develop at the sentence and paragraph level.
• Insight into contemporary experimental nonfiction: By closely reading writers working outside of conventional memoir structures, students will learn how to pitch their own nonfiction.
• The ability to workshop writing in its early stages: This generative workshop will focus on collaborative, inquisitive workshopping that seeks to support works-in-progress.
• The first draft of an essay focused on the everyday: Students will write at least one full essay and will have the beginnings of several more.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE: