Food Memoir: The Hungry I
A Primer in Personal Voice and Personal Narrative
June 16 – August 4, 2013.
Taste memory rises from the alligator brain, raw, pre-conscious, deeply personal, close to the bone. Food preferences, habits and rituals are also intimate windows into disparate cultures, classes, eras and places. Today, as the once-dominant culture and its traditional narrators give way to a multicultural world with new, unpredictable and constantly shifting media, it is probably no coincidence that memoir has become the new first novel or that food has replaced sex, drugs & rock-n-roll as the métier for coming-of-age stories.
Designed for aspiring memoirists as well as writers interested in deploying elements of memoir in essays and articles, the seminar includes eight podcasted interviews, editing of assigned or ongoing work, seven conference call workshop sessions and one 30-minute private coaching session. Lectures and interviews are conducted with memoirists such as Diana Abu-Jaber, Molly Birnbaum, Gael Green, Madhur Jaffrey, Judith Jones, Georgia Pellegrini and Ruth Reichl.
THE BASICS
WHO For aspiring memoirists and those interested in strengthening personal voice and narrative in their work.
WHEN June 16 – August 4, 2013. Sundays 8:00 P.M. To 9:30 P.M. EDT.
WHERE Assignments are submitted via our virtual classroom. Workshops are conference calls. Access codes for both the classroom and the calls are included in your registration packet.
ETC Suggested readings and assignments are included in the registration packet. From time to time, depending on the interest of a given workshop or individual, the reading list is expanded or additional lectures are included.
COST $750
Touch a star-fruit to see what the skin is like, smell the clementine, listen to the talkers on the train, watch the sunrise again and again. Food writing is all about the senses and the more you hone yours, the stronger your work will be.–Monica Bhide
