June Writer’s Night – Finding What We Know: A workshop on creative nonfiction, with writing exercises in memoir

“We write what we know about what we don’t know.”  Grace Paley

The fairly recent nomenclature of “creative nonfiction” might easily include our first diaries and journals, first beloved poems, essays, and autobiographical “true stories,” and blossom into writing about others’ real lives as a journalist, a local or overseas reporter, or researcher, or as a poet and essayist, or editor of others’ works.  I’ve worked in all these fields, then found the harder task of separating what is deemed autobiographical material from what it can blossom into, as fiction or nonfiction, realism or fantasy or a mix of the two and discovering what it is one most wants to create, as well as what you might expect to make a living from for all our efforts. Join us for a discussion of what interests you in creative nonfiction, a chance to share some helpful book titles and authors we each recommend, and some time to write one or two pieces of memoir, to see what we come up with. Let’s focus on honesty and the pleasure of each other’s company.

Speaker Bio

Sandra Dorr is a Grand Junction poet, editor, teacher and author of award-winning poems, fiction and nonfiction. She’s currently at work on a memoir, and recently performed “If I Must Die,” by the late Palestinian poet Reefat Alareer, for a local fundraiser for the children of Gaza. See www.sandradorr.com or FB page.