College of Arts and Humanities

IMF 52314 Nonfiction: The Memoir Essay W

IMF 52314 Nonfiction: The Memoir Essay W

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Instructor

Patricia Feeney

Class Type 

Craft & Workshop

Course Description

Memoirs—both short and long form—capture an event or time period in the author’s experience. This course explores key fundamentals of the memoir form: voice, veracity, reflection, and sense details. Drawing on the text and examples of memoirists’ essays, the craft lessons lay the foundation for the short-form memoir: a four-to-eight-thousand-word essay written for this course and submitted to the class workshop. The class will examine the work for its success in capturing the elements of the form and ways in which the author may strengthen the essay for publication.

Textbook

The Art of the Memoir
Mary Karr
HarperCollins, 2015
ISBN: 9780062223074

Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir
Sue William Silverman
The University of Georgia Press, 2009
ISBN 9780820331669