Memory & Image: A Micro Memoir Workshop with Poet Joni Wallace

Mondays Oct 2, 9, 16 & 23, 6:30-8:30pm CST, via Zoom
Instructor: Joni Wallace
Nonmember: $150; Member: $125; Student/Vet/Mil $75

*EARN CPE’S

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE. 

Small, disconnected, and incomplete–this is how personal memories often come to us. But how do we take these moments and turn them into something meaningful? In micro memoir, a nonfiction piece is told in 200 words or less and is a perfect way to capture these tiny stories. 

In this generative four-week class, we’ll explore micro memoir and how adding a visual component can add depth to personal stories. Beth Ann Fennelly, Bianca Stone, Karen Brennan, and Octavio Quintanilla are just some writers whose work we will study. After discussing these works, we will delve into our own memories, learn to identify powerful moments and explore them through micro memoir and simple visual art exercises.

The final class project will be a short, linked series of personal stories with visual elements. Students are encouraged to bring and use any art supplies they have around the house.

This course is open to writers of all genres and skill level, 18+. 

Students will leave this class with:

• A short series of micro-memoir accompanied by visual elements
• New critical reading techniques
• Resources for submitting written work

Joni Wallace is the author of three books of poetry and a chapbook: LANDSCAPE WITH MISSING RIVER, Barrow Street Press, 2023; Kingdom Come Radio Show, Barrow Street Press, 2016; To the Lighthouse Award; Blinking Ephemeral Valentine, Four Way Books, 2011, winner of the Levis Prize (selected by Mary Jo Bang); Redshift (chapbook)(Kore Press, 2001). Her work has been featured by the Poetry Society of America and appears in journals such as Boston Review, Conduit, Connotations Press, Gulf Coast, and more. She explores micro memoir through her poetry, and her sound and video work appears on textsound.org and in The Drunken Boat.