True Stories: Writing Memoir and Narrative Non-Fiction
with Patti Miller
and guests Mandy Sayer and Delia Falconer
Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
(Please note access is via stairs)
Maximum of 15 students
True Stories: Writing Memoir and Narrative Non-Fiction is a six-month intensive course for new and more established writers who want to concentrate on creating memoir or narrative non-fiction. It is the first time a six-month course in memoir and non-fiction has been offered in Australia, presenting an opportunity for the development of a complete draft under expert guidance. It is a practical course, using readings, discussion and exercises to develop skills and explore the richness of the genre and the joys, challenges and possibilities for the writer of 'true stories'.
The course will investigate all the necessary skills of life writing, including:
• 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 to manage the creative tension between memoir and fiction
True Stories: Writing Memoir and Narrative Non-Fiction 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 exercises, students will be expected to produce chapters for workshopping and to dedicate as much time as possible to writing during the week. It is expected that participants will be well on the way to a first draft by the end of the course.
The course is open to writers of all levels including those starting out and those wishing to change genres, however a level of competence with English expression is expected and assumed.
There are fifteen places available on this course. Book soon to avoid disappointment.
About the Course Director
Patti Miller is the author of Australia's bestselling life writing texts, Writing Your Life and The Memoir Book, as well as two memoirs, The Last One Who Remembers and Whatever The Gods Do, and one novel, Child. She has also had numerous articles and personal essays published in magazines, literary journals and newspapers, including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian and The Guardian. She has been teaching life writing for twenty years at universities and writers' centres around Australia and takes a memoir-writing group to Paris every year, as well as leading courses in Fiji and Bali. She also works on manuscript development and more than twenty of her writers have been successfully published.
Patti Miller photographed by Sally Flegg
About the Guest Lecturers
Mandy Sayer has published ten books of fiction and non-fiction. Her first memoir, Dreamtime Alice, won The National Biography Award and Australian Audio Book of the Year; her second, Velocity, won the South Australian Premier's Award (non-fiction) and The Age Book of the Year (non-fiction).
Mandy Sayer photographed by Roslyn Sharp
Delia Falconer is the author of two novels, The Service of Clouds, short-listed for major Australian awards including the Miles Franklin, and The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers. She edited The Best Australian Stories 2008 and The Penguin Book of the Road and is the author of Sydney. An acclaimed essayist, short-story writer and critic, she holds a PhD in English literature and cultural studies from the University of Melbourne.
Please note in the event of unforeseen circumstances, courses - including tutors and venues - may be subject to cancellation or change.
