Friday, March 12th, 7-10 p.m. San Francisco
$35 members/$45 others

You’re embarked on writing a book-length memoir. You’re acquainted with the fundamentals of memoir, but perhaps you’re finding some doubts creeping in as you work on your book:  Is my story really that compelling? How do I clear away the clutter and get to the heart of my story? And how exactly am I going to end the book?

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Six Sundays, April 15-Aug. 26 (6 meetings: April 15th, May 6th, June 3, July 1, July 29, Aug. 26) 2:30-5 pm
$335 members/$365 others San Francisco
Testimonials for Kathleen

Attention: This class spans two sessions. The next class begins in Spring Session 2012, starting April 15th. You can register for it now.

Prerequisite: Kathleen’s 5-week Memoir Writing class or Alison Luterman’s 9-week Write from Real Life class (or an equivalent class, taken elsewhere)

Have you embarked on the writing of memoir and find you need some guidance and encouragement? Are you wondering about ways to craft a memoir that is indeed shapely, intense, fascinating…and publishable?  “The artful memoir isn’t easy to knock off,” says Kathleen McClung. “We need skill and nuance in narrating and musing on past events and feelings to make a cohesive whole. Memoirs that matter, that truly move readers, call for soul-searching and for mastery of essential literary elements—an engaging voice, vivid scenes and characters, a careful blend of action and reflection, a unifying thread/theme.”

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Saturday,  10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (this class is not currently scheduled)
$95 members/$110 non-members

“Inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness. I learned that you should feel when writing, not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten—happy, absorbed, and quietly putting one bead on after another.” Brenda Ueland

In this workshop, you will view and create writing as an act of quietly putting one bead on after another. “The healing that emerges from a writing practice may be slow and subdued, but definitely powerful,” says Kathleen McClung.

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This Class is Not Being Offered Next Session

Saturday, NO DATE AT THIS TIME, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
$95 members/$110 others

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Writing truthfully and artfully about our early childhood—before age 12—calls for a fine balance of skill and compassion, memory and imagination.  This mini-workshop, designed for both beginning and experienced writers, will provide practice and guidance to illuminate and enrich creative projects exploring the events, people, places, and inner worlds of childhood.

“My goal is to help memoirists, fiction writers, and poets write faithfully and evocatively about the girls and boys that they — or their fictional characters — once were,” says instructor Kathleen McClung. Read the rest of this entry »