Class Starts Tuesday, February 18th, 2025

Class will meet weekly via Zoom from 7:00 - 8:30PM Eastern

Any questions about this class? Use the Chat Button (lower left) to talk with us.

Annmarie Kelly is the author of Here Be Dragons, a memoir about the wonderful misery of raising children with someone you love. She also hosts Wild Precious Life, a literary podcast about making the most of the time we have. Annmarie teaches writing at Cuyahoga Community College and Ashland University where she also works with incarcerated students trying to obtain their degrees. Her essays have appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered, in Today Parenting, Black Fork, Gordon Square Review, Anodyne, New York Observer, and her work has been staged with the Cleveland Humanities Festival and Listen to Your Mother Pittsburgh. She’s received support from the Ohio Arts Council, Martha’s Vineyard Institute, Tin House, and Il Monasterino della Conoscenza, and was recently named both the 2024 Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum Writer-in-Residence and the 2024 Erma Bombeck and Anna Lefler Humorist-in-Residence. In her non-writing moments, Annmarie loves kickboxing, karaoke, dogs, ping-pong, books that make her laugh, movies that make her cry, and salads other people make her eat. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio, where she is currently querying a novel about all the truth in the lies we tell.

Learn more about Annmarie in our Meet the Teaching Artist series.

Everyone has a memoir inside of them, but sometimes it takes a little support and prodding to help us bring our truth to the page. In this workshop, we’ll discover how to tap into vulnerability, heartache, love, and loss to share the stories only we can tell.

So You Want to Write a Memoir? Maybe you’ve drafted a handful of chapters. Maybe you jot down notes on your phone or scribble lists on a sketchpad in your car. Maybe you already have the photo picked out for your book jacket. Now what? How do you actually write the book?

Planning, pitching, and publishing a memoir can be lonely work, but it is also absolutely do-able and wonderfully rewarding. In this workshop, we’ll get moving on our memoirs. We’ll jumpstart creative juices and put ourselves on the path to success.

Each week, we’ll study one facet of memoir and apply that technique in our own storytelling. In addition to generating new material, everyone will leave this workshop with a sample book proposal and the inspiration needed to write the stories only you can tell.

No assigned texts. Only excerpts provided by the instructor.

COURSE OUTLINE:

• Week 1 – Mining memories. What are the 6-12 moments that comprise the bulk of the story you want to tell?
• Week 2 – Writing delight. It’s been said that the center of every memoir is a love story. What is yours?
• Week 3 -- Transcending Pain. What is one difficult story that may hurt to tell but needs to be told?
• Week 4 – Protecting Your Truth. A memoir is our versions of the tale. What obligations do we have to the other characters in our stories?

COURSE TAKEAWAYS:

• One to three key scenes that will form the bones of your memoir.
• An outline of the most important moments of your autobiography.
• Routines and prompts to keep you writing even when the workshop ends.
• List of publications that welcome CNF submissions.
• Connections to other writers on their own memoir journey.

TESTIMONIALS:

“Annmarie radiates energy.” – Sonia N.

“I would rate this class a 10. Overall, this was the best experience I’ve ever had in a writing course.” – Kate F.

“Annmarie’s teaching skills were amazing, and she vividly answered my questions.” – Chelsea K.

“For the first time, I feel like I can call myself a writer. Thank you, Annmarie!” – Amanda R.

ONLINE COURSE STRUCTURE:

This class meets weekly via Zoom. Come prepared for a super fun class with live interaction on Zoom each week and plenty of writing, reading, and talking!

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

Tuition is $299 USD. You can pay for the course in full or use Shop Pay or Affirm to pay over time with equal Monthly Payments. Both options are available at checkout.

• Instructor: Annmarie Kelly
• Class starts Tuesday, February 18th, 2025
• Class will meet weekly via Zoom from 7:00 - 8:30PM Eastern
• Tuition is $299 USD

Contact us HERE if you have any questions about this class.