I Remember: A Five-Week Generative Writing Workshop
Using Memory as Source Material
Description
In this 5-week generative writing course, we’ll explore how memory can ignite new writing. Through discussions, readings, and generative prompts, we’ll experiment with documenting, archiving, reimagining, and transforming our recollection of past experiences. Our explorations will draw on journals, found materials, online archives, and personal histories, alongside examples from literature, art, film, music, and oral histories.
Sessions include three parts:
- Brief conversation and thematic introduction
- Focused in-class writing period with prompts
- Group sharing and discussion
This class is open to writers and artists of all levels who are curious about the relationship between attention, memory, and narrative.
We’ll take inspiration from short, optional readings by writers including W.G. Sebald, Annie Ernaux, David Markson, Joe Brainard, Virginia Woolf, Gaston Bachelard, Vivian Gornick, Teju Cole, and Jon Fosse.
By the end of the course, you’ll leave with:
- A body of new writing
- Sharpened observational tools
- Practical strategies for gathering material
- A renewed awareness of how the world around you can shape your creative practice
Syllabus (subject to change)
Week 1 — Fact or Fiction
Exploring how memory enters creative work, from faithful documentation to imaginative reinvention.
Week 2 — Documenting Memory
Examining archives, journals, and personal collections as raw material for writing.
Week 3 — Memory and Time
Experimenting with the ways time reshapes memory and narrative.
Week 4 — Memory and Place
Considering how environments, past and present, shape memory and serve as material for writing.
Week 5 — Private Languages
Developing personal codes, motifs, and recurring images to shape memory into art.