Eight-Week Personal Essay and Memoir Workshop on Zoom
FALL 2022 DATES COMING SOON
Details at daummasterclass.com
Meghan is not currently offering private coaching.
Why A Private Workshop:
Whether it’s a short personal essay or a book-length memoir, writing about yourself is a tricky thing, Get it wrong and you can be branded a solipsist, a whiner, a shameless exploiter of yourself and others, or, gasp . . . confessional. On the other hand, get it right and you can touch readers in ways you didn’t think possible.
I've been lucky enough to forge a career around personal writing. It’s by no means the only kind of work I do, but it’s what readers tend to remember the most. Part of my success was due to timing. When I started out, I had the luxury of taking as long as I needed to get something right and of working with topnotch editors that could make my writing even better. Readers, too, read more carefully and with greater generosity of spirit. There were no comment boards, no social media, no bloggers ready to rip my work apart before they’d even read it. Thanks to all of this, I took risks in my writing. Without constantly looking over my shoulder in anticipation of criticism or a Twitter smackdown, I was able to wrestle with sensitive topics and express complicated and often controversial ideas. I was able to write from a place of vulnerability but also control.
In the years since, I've had the privilege of helping hundreds of students find their own voices, excavate their most original and daring ideas and tell their stories with the kind of energy, honesty and craft that will help take them to the next artistic and professional levels.
In early 2018 I began offering that guidance in a private, weekend-long workshop in my home.
What You’ll Get Out Of It:
Think of this as a workshop combined with an extensive, free-ranging and highly interactive craft talk lead by me (plus maybe a special guest or two). It is not “generative.” That is to say that other than a few short exercises you will not be generating any new writing on the premises. The goal is to come out of the weekend with new ideas, a roadmap for making your pages as good as they can be and maybe even a new and different sense of yourself as a writer.
Your pages will receive a solid hour of discussion in the workshop format. As fruitful as that discussion should be, it’s my experience in courses like these that inspiration is just as likely to happen during spontaneous conversations as during workshop discussions. So think of it as one hour of focused critique of your pages and 15 more hours of fascinating and equally fruitful conversations with fellow writers (sense of humor is a must, by the way).
The class runs Saturday and Sunday from 10am to 4pm each day and includes light breakfast and catered lunches. Coffee, tea, soft drinks and snacks are available at all times.
Each weekend features visits from writers and industry professionals. Guests have included authors Kate Bolick, Nina Burleigh, Susan Dominus, Steve Friedman, Cathi Hanauer, Heather Havrilesky, Julie Klam, Tim Kreider, Jillian Lauren, and Dinah Lenney. We've also had visits from Brettne Bloom, literary agent at The Book Group, Simon & Schuster editor Emily Graff, and Sari Botton, essays editor of Longreads. More amazing speakers always around the corner!
Who It’s For:
Intermediate to advanced writers. These distinctions are difficult to quantify, but it would be great if you’ve spent at least a few years thinking seriously about your writing and doing as much of it as you can.
Maybe you’re working on a book length memoir. Maybe you have a draft of a personal essay you’re looking to polish. Maybe you have detailed notes for a project and need guidance on how to shape those notes or what form the project should take. In any of these cases, you could benefit from the workshop.
You need not have published, but a desire to be published in the future and a familiarity with the workshop format is a plus. (You’ll be expected to have read your classmates’ submissions and come prepared with constructive, thorough feedback.)
Space is limited space and the class is admissions based. Please send no more than 20 pages of personal writing along with a note explaining your creative and professional goals.