Fine Arts Work Center In Provincetown

24Pearlstreet Workshops

Michelle Tea Memoir That Reads Like Fiction Non-Fiction March 21 to March 25, 2016 Tuition: $500 Class Size: 12 Session: spring Level: 1 week asynchronous workshop

In this intensive memoir workshop, you will learn techniques to create a memoir with a cinematic feel and the singular voice of an immersive novel. In addition to discussing style and craft, you will also touch on the personal concerns that inevitably arise when a writer takes on the telling of their own story. You will leave this class with the ideas and understanding to make your memoir come alive.

Memoirist, novelist and poet Michelle Tea will advise on the creation of a memoir that has the cinematic feel and the singular voice of an immersive novel. Learn techniques to distance yourself from your own experience, face down fears, slaughter sentimentality, engage in ruthless honesty and create a version of yourself that is both truthful and larger than life. In addition to style and craft we will touch on the personal concerns that inevitably arise when a writer takes on the telling of their own story. You will leave this class will a firmer understanding of what your memoir needs to come alive and how to make it happen.

Biography

Michelle Tea is the author of five memoirs, including the award-winning Valencia, and How to Grow Up, published January 2015 on Plume/Penguin. She is also the author of the poetry collection The Beautiful, and three novels, with more in the works. She has edited four collections of memoir-based writings, and is the founder and editor of Mutha Magazine, an alternative online parenting magazine focusing on personal stories. Tea blogs regularly about her experiences trying to get pregnant in the column Getting Pregnant with Michelle Tea on xojane.com. She is the editor of Sister Spit Books, an imprint of City Lights, and founder and Artistic Director of the queer-feminist literary organization, RADAR Productions.