24Pearlstreet Workshops

Tessa Fontaine Writing Your Way to the Spark: A Generative Memoir Workshop Non-Fiction April 29 to May 24, 2019 Tuition: $500 Class Size: 15 Session: spring Level: 4 week asynchronous workshop

In this generative workshop, we’ll focus on translating personal experience and research into effective memoir or personal essay. Through prompts, we’ll invigorate both right and left brain memories and ideas, incorporate outside materials, understand when to use invention, juxtaposition, patterns, and more. We’ll read and discuss short outside examples. We’ll jump into unexpected threads in our writing, approaching our stories from new perspectives. This workshop is open to writers working on long projects, or starting something new. We’ll write vigorously, read voraciously, give and get feedback, and leave with lots of new material.

Biography

Tessa Fontaine is the author of The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts, a New York Times Editor's choice, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick, an Amazon Editors' Top 100 of 2018 and Best Memoir/Biography of 2018, and more. Tessa’s writing won an AWP Intro Award, and has appeared in Glamour, The Believer, LitHub, Creative Nonfiction, and elsewhere. She has taught at various universities, for the New York Times summer journeys, and in prisons.