Memoir as Love Letter

“Who would you communicate with if you could reach across time and space?” asks instructor Kerry Muir. “A child yet to be born, a beloved friend, a parent now gone? Our prose takes on a strikingly intimate quality when we write with a specific recipient in mind—either with an eye towards instructing that person, as an expression of gratitude, or as a way to resolve unfinished business.”

Mary Louise Parker refers to her memoir Dear Mr. You as “a collection of thank-you notes” to the men in her life—among them her father, her first love, and the orderly who delivered her baby. Ta-Nehisi Coates began writing Between the World and Me as a letter to his teenage son to help him navigate a world fraught with racial injustice, and ended up weaving personal story, American history, and even facts and figures into a lyrical, compelling book-length narrative.

In this workshop, participants will explore the rich possibilities of the letter writing-form, engaging in a series of in-class writing exercises and optional take-home assignments to get them generating their own missives, which then may become essays, a longer chapbook, or the opening chapter of a memoir. For guidance, we’ll read selections from Coates and Parker, as well as short passages from Karl Ove Knausgaard’s Autumn.

Beginning, intermediate and experienced writers are all welcome -- anyone can write a letter!