by Writing Workshops Staff
17 hours ago
What if the turning points of your life could be captured not just in words, but in images: old photographs, ticket stubs, hand-drawn sketches, or digital collages? For Sarah Van Arsdale, whose most recent book, Catch and Release, blends illustrated poetry with visual art, the intersection of words and images has become a creative obsession.
Now she's bringing that multimodal approach to memoir in The Illustrated Flash Memoir Workshop, a six-week online class starting February 10, 2026.
Van Arsdale, author of seven books, including the Peter Taylor Prize-winning novel Blue and the SUNY Press release Grand Isle, has spent decades teaching creative writing, most recently in Antioch University's low-residency MFA program.
Her approach to this workshop is distinctly hands-on. Expect papier-mâché on your jeans and ink blotches on your fingertips, as she likes to say. Students will learn to strip away everything unnecessary in their prose to reach the heart of a story, while simultaneously exploring the countless ways visual elements can deepen and support their writing.
The result? A polished, illustrated flash memoir, what Van Arsdale calls "a little jewel box", that combines the precision of craft with the expansiveness of visual storytelling. No artistic experience is required.
Here is our Meet the Teaching Artist interview with Sarah:
Writing Workshops: Hi, Sarah. Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Sarah Van Arsdale: Hello, Everyone! I'm eager to see what my students will come up with in this generative class. I'm an author and artist, with current projects exploring the use of the visual with words.
Writing Workshops: What made you want to teach this specific class? Is it something you are focusing on in your own writing practice?
Sarah Van Arsdale: After writing and illustrating my most recent book, Catch and Release, I've been taking more art classes and thinking more about how the two forms can intersect. Papier-mâché on my jeans, ink blotches on my fingertips, couldn't be happier.
Writing Workshops: Give us a breakdown of how the course is going to go. What can the students expect? What is your favorite part about this class you've dreamed up?
Sarah Van Arsdale: "Dreamed up" is right! This course is different from the many workshops and classes I've led in fiction writing. We'll start by exploring ideas about what makes "flash memoir" and how to strip away anything unnecessary in order to get at the heart of a story. Along the way, we'll be talking about and sharing ideas of the myriad ways of illustrating a story, from old photos to news clippings to scribbles in crayon.
Writing Workshops: Who was your first literary crush?
Sarah Van Arsdale: I'm not sure what that means. I wanted to live like a character in Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, and later wanted to be an extra sister in the troubled Glass family in J.D. Salinger's novel. (If you know these books, you'll see that I wasn't the most emotionally stable teenager).
Writing Workshops: What are you currently reading?
Sarah Van Arsdale: Just finished the excellent Monkeys by Susan Minot. Breathtakingly beautiful, simple yet complex story.
Writing Workshops: How do you choose what you're working on? When do you know it is the next thing you want to write all the way to THE END?
Sarah Van Arsdale: Is it naïve to say it chooses me? When I become obsessed with something and find myself thinking about it even outside of writing hours, I know I'm in for the long haul.
Writing Workshops: Where do you find inspiration?
Sarah Van Arsdale: Reading, especially fiction. I tend to read all over the map, with a penchant for older fiction (Monkeys is from 1986) and/or fiction from outside the USA. Also, music—I have a broad range of musical tastes, from Bad Bunny to Chopin to Luis Fonsi to The Bare Naked Ladies. Other recent favorite books: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, Colored Television by Danzy Senna.
Writing Workshops: What is the best piece of writing wisdom you've received that you can pass along to our readers? How did it impact your work?
Sarah Van Arsdale: Best writing advice is an ad slogan: Just. Do. It. If you want to write, write. This is deceptively simple advice, hard to do, but it works. When I am dragging my feet and avoiding the desk at all costs, I ask myself how I'll feel when I'm 80 if I haven't written. Also: less is more. Clip, clip, clip any unnecessary words.
Writing Workshops: What is the worst piece of writing advice you've received, read, or heard? Why is this something you push against in your own writing practice?
Sarah Van Arsdale: Outlining. It does work for some writers, but for me, it's important to let my subconscious have free rein, especially in the initial writing stages, and only later impose an outline.
Writing Workshops: What is your favorite book to recommend on the craft of writing? Why this book?
Sarah Van Arsdale: I still like Dorothea Brande's Becoming a Writer, published in 1934. It's basic, to the point, and emphasizes the need to maintain a boundary between your writing self and your editing self.
Writing Workshops: What's your teaching vibe?
Sarah Van Arsdale: Cool. Relaxed. Cheerful. I like laughter, but I am also a stickler for grammatical rules.
If you're ready to explore the possibilities of combining visual art with short-form memoir—whether through family photographs, found objects, or your own drawings—Van Arsdale's workshop offers a rare opportunity to work across creative forms. Her cool, relaxed teaching style and her insistence on cutting to the heart of a story make this an ideal space for writers of all levels to experiment and grow. Enroll in The Illustrated Flash Memoir Workshop and leave with your own illustrated jewel box of a memoir.
