101 It Happened Here and Then: Grounding Your Memoir in Time and Place (ENGLISH)

Some real-life experiences unfold as they do because they happened when they happened and where they happened. Any other time and place would have led to a different story. This workshop will help students solidly root their stories both in a specific geography and an historical era, allowing readers the delicious experience of revisiting a slice of history in three-dimensional detail. Students will learn simple research and craft techniques to include news events, elements of popular culture, local lexicon, environmental features, and political details. We’ll fill the time with discussions, short excerpts from published works, and class discussions. We’ll also explore how to dial back as authors to recapture our younger observations and points of view. As we cast ourselves back in time to re-experience select moments from the past, we’ll make our memoirs colorful, memorable and — most of all — fun to write.

Instructor

Hope Edelman