Tuesdays, April 7-May 12, 2026, 7-9pm EST
Online via Zoom
Creating a satisfying narrative arc out of your own life story is extremely difficult, partly because you're still living it. How do you write a story where there is no real "end," and when life doesn't actually develop in a series of "aha!" moments? There’s a certain amount of translation necessary to condense a sliver of the messy, complex, ongoing story of your life into something that feels narratively satisfying to a reader. In this course, we'll talk about how to find the central arc in your story despite the fact that real life is never that simple, and how to create tension that will keep readers turning the page.
We’ll use outlines as the foundation of this course, so we can zoom out and talk about students’ full projects and story structures. Through craft lessons, assignments, and group feedback, students will break down and rebuild their outlines, leaving the course with a clear plan for how to structure their story—and a roadmap to follow during revision. Each student’s full outline will be workshopped once.
This course is designed for writers with a working draft of a memoir where they have all the pieces but they’re not in the right order yet.
If you're not ready to commit to the six-week workshop, I also offer an independent-study version of this course! No live meetings and no feedback, just the craft lessons and assignments for you to work through at your own pace.