Some of the most compelling personal narratives go beyond the author’s own experience, blurring the lines between memoir and other forms of nonfiction (or even other genres all together) to tell a larger, deeper, more complicated story. Hybrid memoir (sometimes referred to in the publishing industry as “memoir plus”) is memoir that goes beyond personal narrative to incorporate research, reportage, cultural criticism, history, fictional elements, poetry, visual art, or anything else that pushes the limits of the genre.
This independent study course covers four types of hybrid memoir:
Investigative memoir, where the search for the story becomes part of the story.
Works that put personal narratives into larger contexts to talk about political and social issues.
Braided works that incorporate external artifacts like film, visual art, books, music, history, psychology, animal behavior, etc. as a way into the deeper meaning in a personal narrative.
Projects that push the boundaries of memoir all the way into other genres, including image/text works, memoir and essays in the form of something else (aka hermit crabs), and memoir that includes fictional or speculative elements.
Each section includes:
A brief introduction to the particular type of hybrid memoir, including which kinds of stories might be best suited to a particular form, and the key elements/craft moves to pay attention to in the readings.
A reading list, including both essays and books. Students can dabble by reading just the essays, or can spend weeks or months doing a deep dive on several books, or anything in between. That’s the beauty of a self-paced course!
Two variations of a prompt to put those craft moves explored in the examples into practice.
This class is best suited for writers who have some experience writing personal narratives and are looking to expand the tools at their disposal, and/or writers who are in the midst of a project that seems to want to break the mold of the straightforward narrative memoir.
Note: This is a fully independent, self-paced course with no live component or feedback.
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