The Memoir Club
Sara Mansfield Taber
Four Tuesdays, June 12, June 26, July 10, July 24, 10 a.m.-noon
Price: $100 ($80 members)
Book: Writing the Memoir, by Judith Barrington
In the tradition of J.R.R. Tolkein and C.S. Lewis’s Inklings and the Bloomsbury Group’s Memoir Club, this workshop will offer participants the opportunity to read their work aloud in the company of other writers. The primary purpose of the workshop, which may develop into an on-going group, will be to provide members with a forum for the enjoyment of one another’s writing; to supply encouraging, sensitive responses to the work at hand; to let the writer know how the work plays in others’ minds; and to tender suggestions to help the writer meet his/her purpose. Along the way, the instructor will offer tips on the non-fiction writer’s craft, and put forth her thoughts as to enriching each person’s work and helping it fulfill its promise.
Each member is invited to arrive with five double-spaced pages of work to read aloud. About five people’s work should be able to be heard each meeting.
The Memoir Club is open to writers of all forms of creative nonfiction—memoir, personal essay, travel, literary journalism, and blogs. Tolkein suggested that the Inklings was for “people with vague or half-formed intimations and ideas plus those who dabble in ink.” Come with your dabblings and intimations, and hear how your words sound and resound.
ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Sara Mansfield Taber is the author of Born Under an Assumed Name: The Memoir of a Cold War Spy’s Daughter. She has also published Dusk on the Campo: A Journey in Patagonia and Bread of Three Rivers: The Story of a French Loaf. Her essays, memoirs, travel pieces, and commentary have appeared in literary journals, newspapers such as The Washington Post, and been produced for public radio. A past William Sloane Fellow in Nonfiction for the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, she has taught at Johns Hopkins University, the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and the Bethesda Writer’s Center. The March 13th NPR interview with her about her memoir may be heard on the website of The Diane Rehm Show.
