Description
Writers contemplating a memoir confront questions that can be paralyzing. Who am I to write a memoir? Which of many stories to choose? Where to start? How to link the stories? How far, if at all, can the truth be stretched or altered? Am I betraying family and friends by telling their story intertwined with mine? Finally, what about the painful stuff—can I let it out or should I let it be?
The stories are burning to come out, but summoning both the craft and the courage can intimidate and even fail us. In this workshop, we’ll learn how to dig deep for personal material and write with power, clarity, and skill by following seven essential steps—from recognizing why memoir matters to how to take our memoir into the world—or not.
About Beth Kaplan
Beth Kaplan, a former actress, has taught nonfiction writing at two universities for 30 years and won University of Toronto’s Excellence in Teaching award. Her recent memoir-in-essays Midlife Solo: Writing Through Chaos to Find My Way in the World is a compilation of scores of her published essays. She’s the author of four previous books: Finding the Jewish Shakespeare, a biography of her great-grandfather (blurbed by Tony Kushner as “a witty, shrewd, elegant book that tells a vital story”); All My Loving, a memoir of the ‘60s; True to Life: 50 Steps to Help You Tell Your Story, a succinct guide to personal narrative that’s the textbook for her courses; and Loose Woman, about the year her life changed forever, finalist for the Whistler Independent Book Award.
She has lectured about her work across Canada; in the United States, especially New York; at Oxford University; and in French in Paris. Kaplan produces a curated reading series called “So True,” consults privately as an editor and writing coach, is a fellow of the Banff Centre’s Literary Journalism program, was on the board and the conference committee of the Creative Nonfiction Collective, and produces a podcast and a Substack newsletter about memoir writing.
