Workshop Leaders: Andrew Lightman and Dr. Michelle LaFrance

What is your legacy? What is your life story?  How would you write your own obituary? This workshop will focus on memoir, portraits/profiles, personal essays and writing your life experiences. Writers of these types of essays often marry memory, experience, creative storytelling, obituary, playful language and the factual.

Students in this course will read short examples of memoir and profiles, discuss the elements of writing that make for evocative and meaningful reading, and learn about drafting , revision and publishing strategies. This course is ideal for beginners, particularly those who have always wanted to write or share their story, but weren’t sure where to start. Each student will leave with the beginnings of a piece that they may continue to develop toward publication. The instructors are the Managing Editor of the Hill Rag, Andrew Lightman, and George Mason University’s Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric, Michelle LaFrance. Together, they have over two decades of publication in journalism, obituary, poetry, creative nonfiction and academic writing.

Please bring a journal/notebook, a pen, and your most creative self.