Write your memoir with bestselling author Nicole Chung!
This intensive workshop is open to writers working on a memoir or memoir-in-essays. You’ll have the opportunity to participate in lively craft discussions, reflections, and exercises designed to help you identify key ideas and themes you want to explore in your work. If you have an idea for a memoir and are looking to jumpstart it—or are already underway, but struggling to maintain your momentum—this class will help you consider and take concrete next steps.
Application Deadline: March 14, 2025
Watch the Virtual Info Session recording
Format
We’ll spend time brainstorming, learning how to identify and pursue the stories that matter most to us. Through lectures, in-class reading and discussion, and guided writing prompts, we’ll explore characterization, setting, dialogue, structure, plot, pacing, and more. We’ll discuss the different types of memories, the role imagination can play in memoir, and whether and how to bring research and reportage into our stories.
Throughout the intensive, we’ll talk about the ethics of personal writing and how to establish the boundaries we need when writing about trauma or grief. We’ll practice multiple revision strategies, so you’ll never run out of ways to approach and build upon your work. We’ll address your questions about book proposals, pitching, and the publishing industry. And we’ll also hear from occasional guest speakers—editors, agents, and award-winning authors—who can share tips and answer questions about the writing and publication processes.
You will have the opportunity to generate new pages throughout the course and have several chapters/book excerpts workshopped in class. The focus of the workshop will be on growing your craft and building a writing practice that is healthy and sustainable for you, so that you can continue showing up for your work—and telling the stories you need to tell—long after this course ends.
Schedule
Generally this class will meet twice per month, from March 25, 2025 – December 16, 2025, 7–9pm ET, although there may be one or two breaks for students to focus on writing. Workshops will be held via Zoom, with additional opportunities to meet 1:1 with Nicole upon request. Outside of class, students will generate new writing and read and respond to their peers’ work. All students will have the option to schedule an individual follow-up with Nicole during the first quarter of 2026.
To Apply
Deadline: March 14, 2025
Submit a writing sample of 10-20 pages (double-spaced, Times New Roman font) and 1-2 paragraphs detailing your writing goals, intentions, and questions. You may also choose to include a one-page résumé or CV if you have one. Send your submission to laura.spencer@writer.org by March 14.
Acceptance into the workshop is required before registering.
