What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been: How to Write & Publish Your Memoir

Are you ready to honor your life stories by putting them on the page? In this lively and supportive workshop, you’ll learn how to choose a theme and/or era around which to shape a personal essay or book-length memoir. You’ll explore the importance of scene building through setting, sensory details, characterization, dialogue, narrative arc, and lyrical language. You’ll leave with a solid sense of how to begin a short or long memoir and how to seek publication. Attendees will also receive a bibliography of useful and inspiring resources.  

About Melissa Hart:

Melissa Hart is the author of the memoirs Gringa: A Contradictory Girlhood and Wild Within: How Rescuing Owls Inspired a Family. She also wrote the Oregon Battle of the Books 2018-19 middle-grade selection Avenging the Owl, and the forthcoming middle-grade novel Daisy Woodworm Changes the World (Jolly Fish, 2022) as well as The Media Adventurer’s Handbook: Decoding Persuasion in Everyday News, Ads, and More (Citizen Comics, 2023). She’s contributing editor at The Writer Magazine, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, Real Simple, National Geographic Kids, The Los Angeles Times, CNN, and numerous other publications. www.melissahart.com 

How to Join Us

Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMscOqtpzouE9DF9-piZBuVITPn6ZAvlbK1

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

About your chapter

Willamette Writers meetings are open to all writers, 18 and up. Young writers are encouraged to join our Young Willamette Writers meetings. Guests are welcome to make a donation to help support the cost of the meeting (we believe in paying our speakers for their time and skills). This meeting is run by volunteers. We look forward to seeing you there!