Lay It Bare: The Naked Heart of Personal Narrative

Most successful works of memoir, both books and essays, combine self-imagination, a bare-naked heart and a fearless dose of honesty. This workshop will be structured around finding our way into this place. Read excerpts, write, share work and discuss different methods of non-fiction storytelling. The first two days will be spent generating new work – investigating ways to unearth material from our lives and learning constructive editing techniques. Day three will focus on revising one new piece to be workshopped with the group. You will likely leave with several fragments and starts and one longer revised piece.

Margaret Malone is the author of the story collection People Like You, Finalist for the 2016 PEN/Hemingway Award and Winner of the 2016 Balcones Fiction Prize. Her work has been supported by grants, fellowships and residencies from the Oregon Arts Commission, Regional Arts & Culture Council, Literary Arts, Sitka Center for Art and Ecology and the UCross Foundation as well as co-host of the artist and literary gathering, SHARE. Margaret lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband filmmaker Brian Padian and their two children.

• Pen

• Paper/journal

• Computer, tablet

• Whatever you need to write comfortably

• Note: Please also bring one item from the natural world that has special significance for you

• Readings, prompts for generative writing and discussion