Life Writing with Deborah Shepard 2020

Under Deborah’s gentle guidance you will have five blissful days to indulge your dream and begin your life writing project in a collaborative and supportive environment.

WHEN: 5 x sessions, Monday 20 - 24 January 2020, 9:30am - 1:00pm
WHERE: The University of Auckland, City Campus

Course outline

Session One: Getting Started

• Introductions
• a definition of memoir and why people write memoir
• writing exercise: What brought me here?
• a conducive environment for writing
• a timeline of my life
• group analysis of literary excerpts: ‘I was born’
• writing exercise: ‘I was born.’

Session Two: Remembering Childhood

• The Writing Life: writers’ studios and the writing discipline
• writing exercise: ‘My Writing Space’
• writing tips and guidelines for the presentation of work
• edit workshop: a group exercise
• group analysis of literary excerpts: ‘Remembering Childhood’
• writing exercise: ‘Remembering Childhood’

Session Three: Riding the Teenage Years

• Identifying themes, finding the ideal form for your story, demystifying the process
• writing exercise: ‘Identifying my themes’
• Reviewing memoir — your impressions
• Tips on editing, writing a brief bio and posting a story
• writing exercise: ‘Riding the Teenage years’

Session Four: The Road Chosen and a mentoring session 

• writing exercise: ‘The Road Chosen: On Career, Family and Lifelong Passions’
• individual mentoring sessions with Deborah Shepard

Session five: 

• group reading of participants’ stories posted on ‘Your Story’
• the defining qualities of successful authors
• how to protect your writing project and continue the work
• performing opportunities
• group analysis of literary excerpts: a self-portrait
• writing exercise: ‘A self-portrait: where to from here?’
• shared lunch

Learning outcomesOn completion of this course, participants will be able to: continue the reading programme established on the course, using my bibliography and read memoir critically sit down and write with confidence write for online publication continue writing their memoir for book publication, for blogging, as an essay, for a family history project and perform the writing at the monthly Inside Out Open Mic forum.

Who should attend?
This course is designed for: new writers, people who are interested in writing and are newcomers to the genre people who want to discover their writing voice people who want to record their stories for their family people who want to write and publish their life story people who want to explore their inner world and express their thoughts and feelings and observations and transform them into literature young and older writers people who have written in another genre such as fiction or poetry, or non-fiction and who want to explore memoir.

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