Who Am I & Why Am I Here? Making The Most of First-Person Narration

REGISTER NOW    $25.00

So many of us are raised with the admonition, “It’s not all about you.” But when it comes to writing memoirs and personal essays, it kinda is.

Readers need to understand who’s speaking to them and why. A credible and fully fleshed-out “I” builds interest and trust, and it’s a wonderful tool in the amplification of scenes, relationships, and reflective moments. 

In this webinar, you’ll learn how to richly render yourself through examples, exercises, and inventories, and how to plumb your personality and experiences in service of your themes. 

We’ll cover where to add and subtract from all that you know about yourself, when to step up and when to step back. Suitable for those with an idea or a work-in-progress, you’ll come away having unlocked the potential of you.  

This session will cover…

• WHERE to begin with characterization when readers know nothing about you.
• RENDERING the self on a need-to-know basis. What to put in, what to leave out, and how to make those decisions based on the mission of the piece.
• EXERCISES and inventories that will help you see yourself from a distance.

This webinar is for…

• Writers interested in memoir or personal essay.
• Memoirists and essayists seeking methods for developing their presence and voice on the page.
• Writers who want to hone their characterization skills.

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

About Your Presenter

LISE FUNDERBURG’S latest book is Apple, Tree: Writers on Their Parents, a collection of all-new work by 25 writers, which Publishers Weekly deemed a “sparkling anthology” in its starred review. Her previous book was Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home. Pig Candy fits into several genres—including narrative nonfiction, memoir, travelog, and biography—but essentially, it’s a book about life, death, and barbecue.

Lise’s first book was a prescient collection of oral histories, Black, White, Other: Biracial Americans Talk About Race and Identity, the first book to explore the lives of adult children of black-white unions, recently released in an updated 20th-anniversary edition. Lise’s essays have appeared in ThreepennyReview, Harper’s, Broad Street, Brevity, The New York Times, The Chattahoochee Review, and elsewhere. 

Lise teaches CNF at the University of Pennsylvania, the Paris Writing Workshop, and, for those who prefer sweatpants, on ZOOM. 

Questions? Please email Support@rebirthyourbook.com