Does It Have to Be Memoir?: Reimagining Your True Story

REGISTER NOW  $25

We endlessly negotiate the temptations of fiction as we write memoir. What if we yielded?

What if, after all the time you’ve spent excavating your true story, the book you are holding in your hand does not conform to “expected” memoir traditions? 

Perhaps your memoir exists outside the confines of nonfiction. Join us to learn of other elastic forms and the creative choices other memoirists have used to express their “truth.” Explore the many ways to write your story in surprising forms, and how that exploration itself can uncover deeper truth.

In this seminar, Beth Kephart will share her adventures as a picture book author, a writer of prose-poem history, and a corporate fable-ist. She will explore the rich possibilities of true stories as crafted by writers ranging from Victoria Chang, Sarah Manguso, Ocean Vuong, and Deborah Levy to May Sarton and Margo Jefferson.

This webinar includes both teaching and writing time, with short, directed exercises to immediately use your new craft skills.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• CONSIDER truth and its literary purpose
• EXPLORE the plastic possibilities of literary forms
• RESPOND to a series of escalating prompts that help open new doors to the imagination

This webinar is ideal for writers who…

• have tried to hew to the truth, but have found their story escaping truth’s boundaries
• love to experiment with form
• interested in the choices other storytellers have made about the “true” material they are exploring
• want to experiment with some unexpected prompts and possibilities
• wish to engage in a stimulating conversation about telling our true stories, beyond “just the facts.”

Closed captioning is available. ✔
All registrants receive the recording. ✔

ABOUT YOUR PRESENTER

BETH KEPHART is the award-winning author of some 40 books in multiple genres, an award-winning teacher, and a book artist. Wife|Daughter|Self: A Memoir in Essays was named one of 35 of the Best Book Club Books by Independent Review. Good Books for Bad Children: The Genius of Ursula Nordstrom was released from Anne Schwartz Books/Random House in September 2023. My Life in Paper: Adventures in Ephemera was recently released by Temple University Press. Beth’s book arts were featured at the New York Historical Society design event in November 2023.
More at bethkephartbooks.com, bind-arts.com, and junctureworkshops.com.

Questions? Email Info@Craft-Talks.com