Amber Lea Starfire – From Memories to Memoirs

Amber Lea Starfire – From Memories to MemoirsTurn Your Memories into Compelling MemoirsI believe that everyone’s lives, however “ordinary,” are filled with experiences that speak to universal human experience and are therefore interesting to other people. Learn how to record your memories as engaging stories and create a legacy of memoir during this fun, ten-week, moderated self-study course.From Memories to Memoirs is based on Bill Roorbach’s book Writing Life Stories: How To Make Memories Into Memoirs, Ideas Into Essays And Life Into Literature and is designed to help students convert memories into compelling narrative prose.Using a variety of memory-triggering and writing exercises, we will explore the stories that our memories have to tell and learn writing techniques to help tell them most effectively.In this class you will:Define and discuss the nature of memoir and story.Learn techniques to trigger memories and challenge their limits.Explore and discuss the nature of memory.Discover how different types of research can enhance memories and the experience of writing about them.Write scenes that incorporate elements of creative writing while remaining true to the remembered facts.Understand the differences between scene, summary, and exposition, and when to use them.Learn how to develop true-to-life characters on the page.Complete a 1,500-2,000 word memoir or narrative essay.Note: Writing Life Stories by Bill Roorbach is a required text for this class.Your InstructorAmber Lea StarfireAmber Lea Starfire is an author, editor, teacher and writing coach whose passion is helping others tell their stories, make meaning of life, and access inner wisdom and creativity through the act of writing. She earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from San Francisco University and an MA in education from Stanford University. Recent memoirs include Accidental Jesus Freak: One Woman’s Journey from Fundamentalism to Freedom and Not the Mother I Remember: A Memoir. Her Journaling for Transformation series includes Week by Week: A Year’s Worth of Journaling Prompts & Meditations, Journaling the Chakras, and Journaling Through Relationships. Amber is also editor of several anthologies, including the award-winning, Times They Were A-Changing: Women Remember the 60s & 70s.Course CurriculumIntroduction & OverviewIntroduction and course GoalsIntroduce YourselfGeneral Guidelines for Responding to Others’ WritingIntroduction and Overview: Downloadable PDFWeek 1: Defining MemoirWhat is Memoir?Writing PromptsDiscussionExercise One: Mapmaking from pages 28-29​Exercise Two: Map Story on page 32.​Optional & RecommendedWeek 1 – PDF DownloadWeek 2: Making ScenesIntroduction to SceneReading About SceneDiscussion QuestionsDead Frog ExerciseWrite: Cracking Open Your SceneOptional & RecommendedWeek 2 PDF DownloadWeek 3: Writing the SensesWriting the SensesDiscussionReading the SensesWriting the Senses Exercise​Remembering the SensesA Scene ListBurning MomentsWeek 3: Downloadable PDFWeek 4: Real Life CharactersPortraying CharactersCharacteristicsWriting Your CharacterOptional and RecommendedWeek 4: Downloadable PDFWeek 5: Dialogue and DramaCharacterization Through Conflict and DramaPre-WritingCharacterization Through DialogueWriting DialogueDon’t Skip This Exercise!Dialogue With Action and DescriptionCharacterization Through DescriptionWeek 5: Downloadable PDFWeek 6: Emotion and VoiceEmotion and VoiceEmotion and Voice ContinuedBack to the LetterGet Pissed on PaperSelecting Your Final ProjectWeek 6: Downloadable PDFWeek 7: Fact FindingA New AdventureTypes of ResearchThe Half-Hour YearFace-to-Face ResearchWeek 7: Downloadable PDFWeek 8: Employing MetaphorIntroduction to MetaphorMetaphor, the Source of All MeaningAdding Figurative Language and SymbolsWeek 8: Downloadable PDFWeek 9: Saying it RightSaying it RightOn Being ClearProse in MotionRhythm, Density, Texture & PrecisionWeek 9: Downloadable PDFWeek 10: StructureIntroduction to Finding Your StructureFinding Your FormThe Basic Structure of NonfictionWays to Structure MemoirStructuring the Personal EssayWeek 10: Downloadable PDFWrapping Up and What’s NextThe Final Steps (0:42)Course Evaluation