Memoir + Imagination:
Unlock the unexpected power of an unlikely pairing
Do you ever feel like time moves quicker the longer it progresses?
As time seems to slip through our fingers, the people, places, and moments that enrich our lives become even more precious, and the preserving them on the page feels increasingly important.
Discovering that fact as a 12-year-old is actually what inspired me to be a writer.
I read Willa Cather’s My Antonia and realized the titular character was so vibrant and real to me because Cather had captured her in writing. She gave Antonia a sort of immortality, and I could read her story well over a century later and feel like I know her.
I realized then that writing has tremendous power to preserve the people and memories that shape our lives, and to transport readers to those places as well.
Writing about the past requires memory, naturally, but writing vividly about these times requires a mode of time travel fueled by a powerful and unlikely source: imagination.
We tend to think of imagination as exclusively creating those things that are not true or made up, but imagination can also be a powerful muscle to conjure up the past.
I want to invite you on a journey of creative time travel, as we awaken this muscle of imagination in order to more vividly bring your memories to the page.
Memoir + Imagination is a series of three online workshops, designed to equip you with a toolkit to activate the imagination in service of memory, capture people, places, and moments with vibrant detail, and tactical resources for navigating the journey with gentleness if your story becomes difficult to revisit.
Bundle all three together or choose one or two individually–the choice is yours and each one stands alone.
These sessions will include a mixture of writing and instruction, but there is absolutely no pressure to be on camera or interact. Take an hour for yourself. Grab a warm beverage, your favorite notebook, and get comfy.
Can’t make a session live? Recordings are available for listening on your own time.
Tuesday, October 13, 8 p.m. ET
Session 1: Rekindling imagination through the art of remembering
Discover the role of memory in unlocking adult imagination. We’ll start with some imaginative journaling, and work on bringing to life a place from your childhood that brings up positive associations. Calling up this place in detail can only unlock other memories, but can also be a place of grounding to utilize your imagination in the future.
Tuesday October 20, 8 p.m. ET
Session 2: Bringing people to life on the page
This session will focus on capturing the characters from our lives in vivid detail. We’ll look at some examples from literature, and then identify those people that you want to bring to the page. Leave with the beginnings of a vibrant character sketch of one person, and a path to continue to populate your writing with the vivid characters in your life.
Tuesday, October 27, 8 p.m. ET
Session 3: Telling hard stories
While sessions 1 and 2 will largely draw on positive memories to warm up the muscle of imagination and memory, this final session will address how to navigate the hard stories in our lives. It is these stories that can often have the biggest impact, and help readers feel they are not alone, but we must also be kind and gentle with ourselves. This session will provide tactics and strategies for how to begin shaping these onto the page.
Rekindling imagination through the art of remembering. Live October 13, at 8 p.m. via Zoom. Recording available afterwards.
Telling hard stories. Live Tuesday, October 27 at 8 p.m. ET, via Zoom; recording available afterwards.
Bringing people to life on the page. Live on October 20, 8 p.m. via Zoom; recording available afterwards.
Live take place on Tuesdays, October 13-27 at 8 p.m. ET on Zoom, recordings available afterwards.