Writing Workshops on Personal and Life Stories
Make your history come alive by writing a family or personal memoir with the help of Writers Online Workshops. Whether you are just getting started or are completing a book-length memoir or biography, we can help you reach your goals.
Advanced Memoir And Nonfiction Book Writing
Make real progress on your memoir or nonfiction book! You’ll work with an experienced, published author and your classmates to write and revise your manuscript. In this critique-focused workshop, there are no lectures, reading assignments or exercises. Instead, you will focus on writing tips and reminders throughout. You should be prepared to 7,000 words (approximately 28 manuscript pages) and a short synopsis of your book (500 to 750 words maximum) on the course start date.
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Advanced Short Nonfiction Writing Workshop
Continue to build your short nonfiction writing skills in this advanced workshop. You will work with a published article writer and experience the support and encouragement of an online critique group.
You will write up to 9000 words in three installments for instructor and group critique.
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Essentials Of Writing Personal Essays
When you dive into writing personal essays, you can write about any experience in your life. Learn to translate your mundane or outrageous experiences into essays that will be engaging for a general audience. Your personal experiences can help educate, entertain or encourage readers. Through this workshop, you’ll develop the skills to write personal essays and try your hand at creating four to six essays of 500-1000 words each.
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Essentials of Writing Personal Essays II: Advanced
Tackle the questions of writing the personal essay, from the practical (how writers balance craft and confession, creation as well as recreation) to the philosophical (examining subjective “truth” in creative nonfiction; considering the ethics of turning life into art). Work with a published essayist to write up to 8 essays and polish them for potential publication.
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Focus On The Personal/Family Memoir
The story of your own or your family’s history is likely to be the most personal, emotionally satisfying and potentially overwhelming writing project you’ll ever undertake. You’ve collected all the oral history, personal memories, journal entries, photographs, letters and countless other documents – now find out how to weave them together into a compelling story.
Work with a published author to write and revise chapters of your memoir (up to 12,000 words) and develop a working outline for the remainder of the entire book.
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Fundamentals Of Life Stories Writing
Writing is an inherently private activity – and the most personal form is the journal. This is often the jumping off point for a more formal approach to life stories writing, but the inspiration can come from many other sources. You may be intimately familiar with the events and “characters” themselves, you may never have given the thought to the actual process of turning these personal memories and experiences into stories that can be read and enjoyed than others.
