ROUND III

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WHCP participants' pens are scratching the pads so hard they are making fire keeping us warm in this winter season. Check out the new posts!!

Week 1: What is memoir? 

A participant read our mentor text, an excerpt from Nick Flynn’s memoir, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City. I introduced it as a memoir. Another participant said he could relate. This is one of the things people like about this genre, memoir. What is memoir? If you’ve taken this workshop before you might know. What do I ask you to do in my classes? We tell our true stories, a participant offered. Yes, and we tell them artfully. Memoirs are the facts, what happened, told creatively. We want details, to show— not just tell what happened but show the emotional experience. All of our stories are, in some ways, similar. When someone tells a story of what happened to them, we can relate or “identify,” as a participant said. And, in other ways, all of our stories are unique, with their specific situations and details. 

Participants were asked to make a list of firsts. Like traumatic things? Someone asked. Maybe, I said. It’s true, oftentimes negative firsts stick with us, but these firsts can be about anything. One participant worked independently. Another worked with Karen, my new assistant.  Two others worked with me. We read our lists out loud, participants told some details of their favorite stories. We talked more about how we could relate, and also about how our stories varied. 

Some of our firsts:

First relationship
First fight
First funeral
First Car 
First time I was in jail
First car
First time I witnessed a murder
First time I was discriminated against  
First time I flew pigeons 
First hustle 
First trip 
First time someone paid me to not steal cars 
First steak 
First time I was traumatized
First time I had a pet 
First time I had a girlfriend