Monday, September 25th, 6-9pm Central, Virtual
why the art of time in memoir?
Sven Birkerts’ book The Art of Time in Memoir is a jumping off point for consideration of the retrospective mode of narration in this genre. The narrator, from the perspective of experience, has lived to tell what happened and what it all means. Because memoir is built on memories, the story is always from the past. Yet time flows like a river in only one direction: forward into the future. Your “then” becomes the “now” in scenes reconstructed from memory. The narrator “now” looks back on “then” to reflect and comment. The art of time in memoir requires careful attention to perspective/slant, voice, narrative structure, character development, pacing, setting, verb tenses, transitions, section breaks, and continuity. This seminar-style workshop will explore the ways in which time is a key dimension in the genre of memoir and the methods and means to manage it as a writer.
what kind of writer should take this course?
Writers who are working on a memoir or first-person essays will find this more advanced workshop helpful. By close and careful readings of passages from published memoirs, participants will analyze the artistic choices in handling the matter of time made by authors.
what are the requirements?
Comfort navigating an online learning platform and a computer with a camera and mic and a good internet connection.
how does this remote class work?
This three-hour synchronous workshop will be a moderated discussion of the assigned readings with writing exercises to apply various concepts and literary techniques to your memoir project. We will discuss how memory and meaning are altered by time, and how narrator and protagonist are two manifestations of the self. The concept of the fictive present will be introduced and we’ll explore ways to navigate the time dimension in your work. Short reading selections from Birkerts’ The Art of Time in Memoir, Brenda Miller’s Fearless Confessions, and Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and the Story will orient participants to the range and complexity of issues related to time for the memoirist. Woven into our conversations will be a series of short exercises intended to help you set time parameters for your story, switch between the voice of innocence and the voice of experience, and gain confidence narrating in the retrospective mode as someone who has lived to tell what happened and what it all means. In memoir, you don’t narrate events as they happen, but as you look back on your past and tell your truth based on what you remember. Timelines, timestamping, continuity checks, real-life referents, reality checks, vantage points, and other writing tools and techniques will be introduced. These meta- writing methods help you figure out how to give the reader what they need to know when they need to know it. In short, the key to many of your creative editorial decisions involves the dimension of time.
A week in advance of our session, you will receive login instructions for our workshop where you will find the recommended short readings. You will be invited to introduce yourself and submit any questions and concerns about time in your memoir in advance on the Mighty Networks platform. There you will also find a link to our synchronous Zoom session. Our three-hour live session will be conducted like a seminar: a moderated discussion mixed short writing exercises with a brief break midway and time for questions and conversation at the end. You will not be expected to read or share your writing during this workshop, however you will be encouraged to contribute to the conversation about how the material is pertinent to you and your work-in-progress.
what will writers take away?
You will have identified a clear timeframe in which your memoir transpires and these parameters will assist you in determining what memories to develop into scenes and what memories become flashbacks or backstory woven into the narration. You will learn about clap-backs as a device to reward readers for remembering what they have already read. Clap-backs are used by a narrator to make reference to what the reader has already learned on previous pages to deepen the characters, enrich the world-building, and pick up a previous thread and advance it in the storyline. You will leave with a recognition of where in your manuscript you can incorporate clap-backs.
You will pay attention to the voice used in narration in memoir with greater appreciation and a heightened awareness of the literary techniques and devices available to you as a writer. Your attention will guide you to use your voice in a more deliberative fashion. You will have experienced switching between the voice of innocence and the voice of experience during the short creative writing exercise. That experience will allow you to identify these two inflections of voice in your own memoir more clearly and deploy them more strategically as a writer.
You will leave with an articulation of your memoir’s circumstances (the situation grounded in time and space) and its story. Recognizing your situation and story as distinct from one another allows you to select your specific vantage point and slant to narrate in the retrospective mode.
You will leave with a better grasp of how fundamental time is to the enterprise of writing a memoir, gain the confidence to make more artful choices in the unfolding of your story. And you will learn tips and techniques for your writer’s toolkit for handling the time dimension..
who is the teacher?
Jill Swenson is a developmental editor and literary representative in Wisconsin who earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from The University of Chicago and taught journalism at the University of Georgia-Athens and Ithaca College. She has taught writing workshops at The Loft Literary Center, Buffalo Street Books in Ithaca, and the Grand Marais Art Colony. In July 2021 she completed a writing residency sponsored by the St. Croix Watershed Research Station (Science Museum of Minnesota) and was the featured writer-in-residence for the Red Shoes Lake of the Woods Writing Retreat in September 2021. She has recently completed a braided nonfiction narrative manuscript, Dispossessed, exploring on Lake of the Woods in northern Minnesota the connections between her maternal relations and the Kakaygeesick family over seven generations and why we can never dispossess ourselves of the past, no matter how shameful or tragic or distant.
what is the cost?
Elephant Rock tuition for this workshop $129**. Under normal circumstances, full payment is due at least 15 days before the workshop begins. Extended payment plans may be available in cases of severe economic hardship. Please send an email to Elephant Rock to inquire.
**Elephant Rock tuition is nonrefundable but may be transferrable upon request.
what have other writers had to say about Jill?
"Jill is writing coach, advocate, and mentor all wrapped in one," Cathryn Prince, author of QUEEN OF THE MOUNTAINEERS
"I learned to create a compelling narrative...Jill Swenson patiently guided me," Elaine Mansfield, author of LEANING INTO LOVE
how do I sign up?
Please click below to complete course registration: