brisbane
brisbane

Writing Memoir

w/ Kris Kneen

This intimate, in-person 6-week course will set you on the journey of writing memoir. In a creative and supportive environment, Writing Memoir will offer you methods of accessing memories and recognising their inherent shape, finding your writing voice, bringing the details to life, creating the lived reality of your experience on the page and finding its structure.

Mondays 10am – 12:15pm (AEST), 14 July – 1 September 2025

 

Avid Reader – Brisbane

Avid Reader
193 Boundary St
West End QLD 4101

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$720 or $120 per week 

$612 or $102 per week (alumni)


How do we recreate experience on the page so that it retains its vividness – its ‘life-like’ qualities? How do we arrange our life’s events so they don’t read like a litany of everything that happened?

Join Kris Kneen in this intimate 6-week course for memoirists of all levels of experience.

In Writing Memoir, you will explore the craft of life-writing  – how to: start; access memory; use sensory detail; create scenes; find narrative perspective and voice; navigate the complexities of narrative and other structures; and finally, face the complex issues of writing a life.

Each week will include exercises, readings and discussion. There will be time in the last three sessions for students to present their writing for group workshopping, gaining valuable input from each other and clear guidance from Kris. In a warm and supportive environment, you will be encouraged to step into the creative process of constructing a life on the page. The writing skills and inspiration will equally equip you to write biography and personal essays; in fact it will start you on the journey of all creative non-fiction writing.

By the end of the course you will:

  • Have begun the journey of writing your own story (and/or of someone close to you);
  • Gained a knowledge of the craft of writing and be able to use the skills you have learned;
  • Gained confidence in your capacity to write;
  • Extended your knowledge of the literary genre of memoir.

Your course includes:

  • 6 weeks x 2 hour in-person morning classes at Avid Reader Bookshop;
  • A complimentary copy of a recent A & U publication;
  • Critique on work produced for the course;
  • On completion of the course, alumni discounts on future Faber Writing Academy courses and books from the Allen & Unwin website.

Writers you'll be working with:

Kris Kneen

KRIS KNEEN is the award-winning author of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. They have been shortlisted for many awards including the prestigious Stella Prize. Their poetry collection Eating My Grandmother won the Thomas Shapcott Prize. Their latest book Fat Girl Dancing was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, The Qld Premier’s Literary Award for a…

Course outline

Session One: Monday 14 July, 10am – 12:15pm
Meeting Yourself as a Writer – learning about how you work, what you want to work on and why you want to put your life on the page.

Session Two: Monday 21 July, 10am – 12:15pm
Structures of Memoir – learning about common memoir structures and thinking about how you can structure the material you are working on in your project.

Session Three: Monday 28 July, 10am – 12:15pm
Sense, Memory and Memoir – using the senses to access memory and putting those memories on the page. Beginning a short essay which will become a part of your memoir.

COURSE BREAK – during this two week break you will be working on your essay to bring back to the group.

Session Four: Monday 18 August 10am – 12:15pm
Microcosm – Breaking it down into manageable pieces. Wiriting self-contained essays as the backbone for your memoir. Sharing our essay with the group and planning others using a modular approach to memoir.

Session Five: Monday 25 August, 10am – 12:15pm
Time and Perspective – Following characters through a temporal space. Whose story is this and how to we organise their story through time. We will also discuss half of the personal essays.

Session Six: Monday 1 September, 10am – 12:15pm
Index Card Shuffle: Getting a birds eye view of your memoir using a process of creating discrete scenes. In this session we take a look at the pieces of your memoir that you have in hand and what is left to be written. You will leave with a plan. There will also be a discussion of the other half of the group essays.

How to Book

Please note that if you select ‘weekly instalments’ these instalments will be billed weekly from the date of the first payment.

Includes 10% tax