Salted Writes - Making Ourselves Up with Amy Key (TUESDAYS)

Memoir and the art of personal narrative with Amy Key

Annie Dillard wrote that ‘You have to take pains in a memoir not to hang on the reader’s arms, like a drunk, and say, “And then I did this, and it was so interesting.”’ But how do you go about that? What makes one memoir hold the reader’s attention and another shut the reader out of the experience, leaving us mentally scanning the room for another person to talk to?

Over four weeks we will read together, looking at how writers of memoir and personal narrative craft stories that can leave us stunned with self-recognition. We will write together, using fun exercises to come up with new ideas and develop existing ones. 

We’ll chat about the challenges and ethics of writing about our lives, how we can overcome what Leslie Jamison calls ‘the shame of self-interest’ and what strategies we can use when we are writing about other people. Suitable for complete beginners and people with a work in progress, these workshops will be relaxed, warm and above all, generative.

Details

When?
Tuesday evenings
Week 1: March 25
Week 2: April 1
Week 3: April 8
Week 4: April 15

Time?
18:15 - 20:30

Where?
At Salted Books Lisbon.
Calçada Marquês Abrantes 96, 1200-720

How much?
€315

Maximum class size?
12

What do I get from it?
-Weekly in-person workshops and tutorials.
-A writing group to work alongside and spur each other on.
-The time and space to write each week.
-Teaching material to complement each tutorial.
-Craft lessons in memoir and life-writing.

Key Tutor
Poet, essayist and non-fiction writer, Amy Key.