I’m giving a new GrubStreet class (which will be on-line), coming up on August 6th—a four week memoir workshop that focuses on voice, and I have to say I’m really stoked about it. I love talking with other writers about their process and with all the social distancing, etc., of these last few months, I’m looking especially forward to seeing people and getting to talk shop.
The idea for this class came directly out of the last two workshops I gave before COVID rolled into town. We had been talking about Mary Karr’s notion that the most central aspect of memoir—the one that counts the most—is voice, which led to fascinating investigations about what exactly voice is. We all know a great one when we read hear/read it. There are certain concrete elements to it; after all, the narrative voice only exists through the details we write down. But the most intriguing part of voice is the mystery and atmosphere of it, the workings that are harder to define, yet carry so much power.
At my last workshop I wrote The Right to Speak on the board and there was something like an electrical pulse that rippled through the room. The writers seemed to have instant recognition and connection around this idea, and their personal struggles with it: the right to tell their story, the right to be themselves, the right to make time to develop their project and the right to finish it. It’s interesting that in a part of the world where we have a certain amount of freedom with regard to what we can write (relative to other places where a writer might be routinely jailed, or worse), so many fully grown adults still feel a lot of hesitation in their work, sometimes even consciously or unconsciously wanting to be granted permission or a kind of passage.
So, this four week investigation will uncover what voice is and how to better connect with it (amplify it, play with it, really use it—because it’s there to be used). This is about courage, maybe, or understanding what makes a particular writer tick and how to allow that energy into memoir through the most natural conduit there is: voice. If you’re interested in taking this class, here is a link with additional information and registration at GrubStreet.