Advanced Breakout Session Create (Craft)

Reconstruction: Transforming Essays into a Narrative Memoir Manuscript (Create B7)


Heritage B August 26, 2018 8:30 am - 9:30 am

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Lisa Romeo

Many CNF writers begin building work on a topic via essays, leading to an accumulation of linked short pieces, which the writer assembles into a manuscript, which is often declined by agents and publishers, who want traditional narrative memoir. Lisa had this experience, found it frustrating at first, then later liberating, rewriting essays into memoir. She’ll share how she tore down those essays, a heartbreaking but eventually satisfying journey, and rebuilt them as narrative memoir.

Lisa will discuss what she learned, and suggest techniques and tools other “born essayists” can use to convert their connected essays into more traditional memoir.

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