Memoir Writing Classes Offered at Greenwich Library

*Editor’s note: This story was first published Feb. 10. Here it is again, in case you missed it.

Memoir-writing is a special form of art, and in March Greenwich Library will help would-be memoirists get started.

Previous sessions of Crafting Life Stories, led by former New York Times editor Joan Motyka, have been so popular with patrons that the library is offering an advanced version for the first time, as well as the beginner class for a fifth time.

The beginner class will meet from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. for six Thursdays beginning March 10 in the Library Meeting Room. Registration is required.

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The advanced class is for those who have previously taken the memoir writing workshop with Motyka. The class will meet on five Wednesdays from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. beginning March 23 in the Meeting Room. Required registration begins on Monday, Feb. 16 at 9 a.m.

Both workshops are designed to help people discover and tell the stories only they can tell - and to do so in a supportive environment that encourages even beginning writers. With a background in journalism and fiction, instructor Motyka will offer journalistic tools and literary techniques to help people explore the significance of people, places and events in their lives. Using readings, prompts and writing assignments, she helps students draw stories from memory, organize them into a narrative and polish them through revision.

The class will consist of a series of distinct two-hour sessions in which students will read and discuss passages from published memoir and occasionally from poetry or fiction that illustrate that week’s topic. Topics include how to look at yourself as a narrator of stories, how to capture the richness of place, how to plumb your intersection with history, and how to understand the role of other people in your stories. There will also be a discussion of dialogue as well as tips on research, interviewing, and revision.

Motyka is a former longtime New York Times editor and writing coach, and currently an editor at The Westchester Review, a literary journal now in its fifth year. She has been leading memoir writing workshops in Westchester and New York City since 2007.

Contact Michele Martin at 203-625-6533 or at mmartin@greenwichlibrary.org to register with your Greenwich or Perrot Library card number, or by using the library’s online calendar/registration system at www.greenwichlibrary.org. Preference is given to Greenwich and Perrot Library card holders. All others will be placed on the wait list in order of registration.

Photo credit: Damian Gadal via Flickr.com.