The Lyric Memoir with Marco Wilkinson via Zoom

How can we narrate our lives faithfully while innovating at the level of language and structure, considering truth as something that goes beyond facts and includes imagination? In this workshop students will come to the class having written a short piece about a potent moment in their lives, a moment that “sticks,” and in the workshop we will explore various techniques for how to get at different truths of the experience using lyric prose. We will read and discuss various short pieces as models for our own lyric experiments,recrafting our original pieces with inspiration gleaned from these examples.

The workshop will begin with a discussion of what might constitute “lyric essay” (touching on the thorniness of non-fiction v. imagination), then each student would relate the memory they’ve brought to class. From there we would read a few short lyric memoir pieces and pick apart how they do what they do and why. Between each example piece, students would return to their own memory and try their hand at reworking it based on the example just discussed.  We would close by asking what each version of their memories the students have written offers to the writer and the reader. Depending on the number of students, some of this work could be done in small groups and students would read their work to each other.

Registration for this 4hour intensive course is $124. Zoom login information will be sent via email at the time of registration.

Please register at:

https://www.writerscenter.org/calendar/marcolyricessay/

Marco Wilkinson teaches writing and sustainable agriculture at Lorain County Community College and Oberlin College. His work has appeared in Kenyon Review, Seneca Review, DIAGRAM, Bennington Review, Terrain, and elsewhere.

Please note: The Altman POC Scholarships are free and given on a first come, first served basis. Please notify us right away if your plans change and you cannot attend the class. We will then reopen the slot so another student may register. Thank you in advance for this consideration.