Cost and Registration Information

Early Registration Price (August 27 at 9 am** – September 13 at 4 pm): $170
Regular Registration Price (September 13 at 4 pm – first day of class): $187

** Registration opens online at 9 am. Phone registration will be accepted starting at 10 am.

Members, seniors, and students get a 10% discount.

Online registration is closed. Please call 312-255-3700 to register.

Seminar Description

Some call it “navel-gazing.” Publishers call it “best selling.” However much we adore fiction, a good memoir often has more emotional (and commercial) power, in part because it fuses truth with a highly personal story. In this course, we will explore what makes a memoir powerful by studying excerpts of memoirs by Ernest Hemingway, Joan Didion, Maya Angelou, Karen Blixen, Haruki Murakami, and Tom Wolff. Throughout the course, we will discuss key factors such as voice, style, and structure to help develop our skills as memoirists. Students will be expected to bring examples of their own work for discussion.

Three sessions. E - $170, L - $187

Colleen Delegan- Sichrovsky has been a practicing writer for over 40 years. She is an award winning author of screenplays, teleplays, novels, and essays and a member of the Writer’s Guild of America West.

Materials List

Required:

• A selection of shorter materials distributed by the instructor

First Reading:

• There is no reading assignment for the first class.

This class is part of the Newberry’s Adult Education Seminars Program. Learn more about our registration procedures.