Reading a Life: Contemporary American Memoir

Reading a Life: Contemporary American Memoir
Chloe Yelena Miller

Four Thursdays: May 3, 10, 17, 24, 1 – 2:30 PM

Price: $100 ($80 members)

(Limit 15 students)

Books

You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know, Heather Sellers

The Mistress’s Daughter, A.M. Homes

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, Nick Flynn

Reading a Life: Contemporary American Memoir

What does it mean to write a life story? To read it? Together we’ll read and discuss three book-length memoirs while carefully considering their content, form and use of language. Common themes between the three texts include family dynamics and history, personal identity, illness, social services, social expectations and more.

If you are interested in or have started to write a memoir or creative non-fiction essays, this class will help you to better understand the craft tools used in writing. We will do some short in-class writing exercises as a means to better understand the texts.

Please bring the three books, paper and pens to the first class. No reading assignment will be due until the second class. You are, however, encouraged to start reading early.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR

Chloe Yelena Miller received an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poetry has been published in such journals as Alimentum, The Cortland Review, and Narrative. Her poetry manuscript was a finalist for the Philip Levine Prize in Poetry and in Narrative’s First Annual Poetry Contest. She is at work on a memoir that combines essay and verse.