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Course Descriptions

Currently accepting registrations Register now >> Next program starts: Autumn 2008 Program location: UW campus, Seattle Next information meeting: Wed., Aug. 6 (see details >>) Sign up to receive e-mail updates >> Contact a program representative >>   Check out the 2008 schedule of exhibits, readings and showings by students in UW Extension arts and writing programs >>

Interested in taking a single class? Some courses (designated by a below) may be open on a space-available basis to individuals who are not seeking the certificate. See Single-Course Enrollment for details.

Autumn Course

Memoir: Journal

Schedule: Reg #94113. UW campus, Seattle, Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30 p.m., Sept. 30-Dec. 9, 2008 (no class Nov. 11); $575; 3 CEUs. Instructor: Theo Pauline Nestor

Journaling is the fast track into memoir. In this course, writers use the memoir journal to unearth life. Digging in the rich soil of memory, writers encounter "inhabitants," the people of memoir. Writing about other people keeps the writer focused on memory and telling physical detail – wardrobe, hairdo, teeth, dentures, body types, chins, eyes, faces. This workshop introduces the memoir moment, a basic structural unit for bringing form to the chaos of memory. Musical in nature, deep in meaning, loaded with subtext, the memoir moment contains a delicious, sometimes hilarious, often painful memory that has etched itself in the writer's subconscious. At the end of the workshop, building on time-tested journaling techniques, writers produce a thick stack of pages aimed at a memoir of publishable length.

Winter Course

Memoir: Shaping Your Story

Schedule: UW campus, Seattle, Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30 p.m., Jan. 6-Mar. 10, 2009; $575; 3 CEUs. Instructor: Theo Pauline Nestor

The modern memoir is short – 200 pages, tightly written – and tells a story locked in time. This course helps writers find the form that best fits their memoir journal from this program's first course. Memoirs about time (The Year I Got Sick) use time-markers like years or seasons – spring, summer, autumn or winter. Memoirs about space (Towns Where I Lived) use geography-markers – Miami, Detroit, Winnetka, Orlinda or Lubbock. Memoirs that explore emotion use psychological markers – cage, escape, quest, dragon or home. At the end of this course, writers own a thick stack of structured memory writings.

How to sign up for individual enrollment in this course

Spring Course

Memoir: The Language of Life

Schedule: UW campus, Seattle, Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30 p.m., March 31-June 2, 2009; $575; 3 CEUs. Instructor: Theo Pauline Nestor

Like a modern poem, the language of memoir mixes memory and desire, whimsy and despair, exquisite detail, the reflective abstraction that reaches for the sky. When your inhabitants speak, the language of memoir turns to dialogue. There are techniques to make your dialogue sing. When your eye moves in for a close-up, your nouns get concrete and your verbs get strong. There are techniques for nouns and verbs. If you want to get published, the language of your memoir needs to dance, to dive, to soar. Memory digs up emotion; emotion in writing is an energy-node. In this course, writers choose a model memoir, a published book that connects with their writing in style-subject-method. Using these model memoirs, the workshop probes the marketplace for memoir – agents, editors, publishers, books on publishing, and the internet. This course concludes with readings from memoirs-in-progress.

How to sign up for individual enrollment in this course