Class Description
Anybody ever tell you, hey, you should write a book!? Ever wanted to tell your life story but not sure where to begin? Or maybe you’ve completed a first draft and are exploring ways to perfect, pitch, and publish your story? Then this class is for you.
After familiarizing ourselves with key concepts and best practices of life writing, participants will engage in a series of interactive and collaborative exercises that generate and enhance their life stories. We’ll experiment with innovative life writing tools and voice-based composition.
Life writing includes the genres of (auto-) biography, memoir, confession, diaries, journals, and social media posts. It is a way of life, a creative practice, and a performative invitation of past, present, and future selves. As an essential skill of self-representation, life writing is an ideal mode for exploring the roles of (self-) knowledge, memory, time, authority, and experience in creating individual and collective identities.
Dr. Aaron Greenberg co-founded Biograph, a storytelling technology company. He has served on the Core Faculty of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s Bioethics Clinical Scholars Program and is a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Materials List
Required:
- Digital course packet
First Reading:
- “7 Lessons from the Life of Frederick Douglass”
- Selections from Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson’s “Toolkit” and “Life Writing in the Long Run,” which the instructor will provide in advance.
Cost and Registration
Two sessions, $185 ($166.50 for Newberry members, seniors, and students). Learn about becoming a member.
To register multiple people for this class, please go through the course calendar in Learning Stream, our registration platform. When you select the course and register, you’ll be prompted to add another registrant.
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