Instructor: Tanya Goodman
Maximum Enrollment: 10
Class Term: 09/19/2024 - 10/31/2024
Tuition/Fees
SCN Member: $165
Non-Member: $205
Class synopsis
Make it all about YOU with award-winning writer, Tanya Ward Goodman. Each 90-minute Zoom session will include a memoir craft discussion, and prompts for in-class writing. A safe and cheerful space for women to explore memory and the making of meaning.Class description
Memoir has the power to illuminate larger issues, connect us with our communities, deepen our compassion, and expand our worlds. By sharing our stories, we might provide education, awareness, and, perhaps most important, company to others in their time of need. Writing about ourselves is not always easy. Over the course of this four week workshop, we will look at various ways to jog the memory, enter the creative process, and tell a story that is both unique and universal.
Class goals
Whether you are starting a new project or looking to re-invigorate your current work, you'll leave this class with boosted morale and a toolbox of new tricks., During our six weeks together, we will use mentor texts writing prompts and other exercises to connect our story to the bigger story.
Class communication method
I will be delivering content over Zoom on Thursdays from 9/19 - 10/31 (we are skipping 10/3 due to my traveling schedule). The Zoom session will be from 4pm-5:30pm Pacific Time; 7-8:30 Eastern. I will also email directly with students. In addition, I will provide links and/or PDFs of reading material and lists of recommendations.Class outline
Week 1. Following the clues: using objects and ephemera for inspiration and discovery.
Week 2. Everybody’s talking. We’ll look at a variety of ways to create an authentic narrative voice and populate your project with a cast of unique individuals.
Week 3. Kindling your story: using outside sources such as recipes, letters, quizzes, to move forward and deepen the narrative.
Week 4. Who’s in the room? We’ll look at ways of deepening empathy and creating compassion by writing scenes from multiple points of view.
Week 5. Unpleasant Emotions: Let’s write about jealousy, anger, deceit and laziness. Write it all to make it true.
Week 6. Wrap up: Where to now? Review and discussion of how to cultivate and sustain a writing practice.
Class time commitment
We will have one ninety-minute class per week. Outside writing assignments will be limited to four pages.Instructor bio
Tanya Ward Goodman lives in Los Angeles. She is the author of the award winning memoir, “Leaving Tinkertown.” Her essays and articles, which often focus on the challenges and rewards of caregiving and parenting, have appeared in numerous publications including The Los Angeles Times, Luxe, Perceptions Magazine, Fourth River, Coast Magazine, OC Family, Orange County Register, The Huffington Post, Literary Mama and Brain,Child. As a founding partner of Girl Group Enterprises, she co-created social emotional curriculum and facilitated workshops for children and teens as well as their parents and teachers. Curiosity and flexibility honed on childhood road trips throughout the United States have served well on more recent journeys to Peru, Costa Rica, Myanmar, Jordan and Morocco. She is currently at work on a second memoir about travel, mothering, and the cultivation of a willing acceptance of uncertainty.
