Start Your Memoir
Join celebrated memoirist and teacher Patti Miller to break down the barriers to beginning your memoir.
Level
What do these levels mean?
Location
Length
Throw yourself into your story
This five-day intensive course will set you on the journey of writing your memoir or autobiography. In a creative and supportive environment, it offers ways of accessing memories and recognising their inherent shape, of finding your writing voice, of bringing the details to life, of creating the lived reality of your experience on the page and finding its structure.
You will also explore the difficulties of truth-telling, including the issues of the borderlands with fiction and the problem of self-indulgence. There will be some readings and discussions and lots of writing and workshopping, with individual comment on your work. It is skills-based and will encourage and extend both beginners and more experienced writers. The course will be based on the text Writing True Stories by Patti Miller, from Routledge.
Is this the right course for me?
Whether you're looking to write about your own life or someone else's, this course will explore the many possibilities the genre has to offer. You don't need to have taken any courses before but the course is also not designed for complete beginners and is best suited to students who have already experimented with some form of writing.
This course takes place Monday to Friday at Faber's offices in Hatton Garden. Teaching time will run from 10:00 until 14:00 each day, followed by a break for lunch. Your classroom will then be available until 16:00 each day for writing time.
Course Programme
Session 1
Monday 8 September, 10:00–16:00
Beginning ...
Session 2
9 September, 10:00–16:00
Observation, showing and telling...
Session 3
10 September, 10:00–16:00
Voice and truth...
Absolutely excellent introduction to learning about writing a memoir.
Tutors
Patti Miller
Patti Miller is the author of ten books, three of which are writing texts: Writing Your Life; The Memoir Book and Writing True Stories...
More About This TutorLocation
The Bindery
51 Hatton Garden
London EC1N 8HN
How to get here
Faber’s office, The Bindery, is well connected by public transport, with Farringdon Station just five minutes’ walk away, and stops for several bus routes in the area too. If you’re coming from outside of London, the office is a short bus or taxi journey from Kings Cross, Euston and St Pancras stations.
Browse the Reading Room
From author interviews and writing tips to creative writing exercises and reading lists, we've got everything you need to get started – and to keep going.
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