Description
“Who am I?” memoirists ask as they seek to record an honest account of their lives on the page. This workshop will examine the author’s identity as a stack of nesting dolls, while offering a series of practical exercises to help the writer understand the ways in which his or her own life has reflected continuous personal growth. In what era are we situating our persona in each chapter or anecdote? How do we create a complex and contradictory self—learning, growing, pressurized, evolving—throughout our memoir?
Join us for this interactive writing workshop where we’ll explore how our myriad “rooms of self” help us create compelling characters.
Deborah Taffa-Presenter Bio:
Deborah Taffa’s memoir, Whiskey Tender, is a finalist for the 2024 National Book Award in Nonfiction. It has been named to several 2024 best lists at outlets such as Esquire, Oprah Daily, ELLE, and The Washington Post. With fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, MacDowell, and the NY State Summer Writers Institute, Deborah received her MFA in creative nonfiction writing in Iowa City. A citizen of the Kwatsaan (Yuma) Nation and Laguna Pueblo, she is the director of the MFA Creative Writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. Her writing can be found at PBS, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon, The HuffPost, and other outlets.
