This course will help develop skills and explore the richness of the genre along with the joys, challenges and possibilities for the writer of ‘true stories’. Over four months, you will investigate how to access memory, how to create the lived texture of experience on the page, how to find a narrating position, where to find a voice, how to structure your story, how to avoid self-indulgence, how much research to include, how far to go in the borderlands between memoir and fiction—indeed all the myriad arts and skills of writing true stories.
In addition, each person will also have two 30-minute individual sessions with Patti Miller to discuss their own particular writing issues. During the course, participants will write two whole chapters at least and have them workshopped in detail with two additional sessions in 2024 providing ample time to discuss structural issues under Patti Miller’s expert guidance. In addition, there will be the invaluable opportunity to intimately discuss the challenges of writing with inspiring authors and experts in the publishing world. Guest writers will share the benefit of their experience. Participants will also learn how to pitch their work and the opportunity to talk to a publisher and/or agent will be offered near the end of the course.
Writing True Stories is a practical and inspiring course for writers who are ready to commit to the process of producing a full-length work of memoir or narrative non-fiction. Apart from the writing classes and writing exercises, students will be expected to dedicate as much time as possible to writing during the week. The course is open to all levels of experience, including those starting out and those wishing to change genres. It will extend and challenge writers at every level of experience.
Graduates who complete Writing True Stories will have the opportunity to be published in the annual Faber Writing Anthology. The Faber Writing Anthology is distributed to publishers and literary agents across Australia and the United Kingdom.
