The New Curiosity Shop

Learn to write your own life story in an engaging and readable way.

Life writing is becoming increasingly popular. In the public sphere we see more memoirs and autobiographies being published, and in the private sphere people are writing for many different reasons - you may want to understand your life or you may be interested in leaving a record for the next generation.

Anyone can write down what happened to them, but there are approaches and techniques that make the writing more illuminating for the writer and more interesting for potential readers. This is what the course is about.

The key elements of the course include:

• recognising significant life moments
• structuring them into an engaging narrative
• using old photographs to construct a memoir
• understanding the differences between writing memoirs for print and online
• presenting the complexity of their lives

Outline

1. Planning your writing and getting started
2. 'Voice' and memory
3. Background and context.
4. Using photos and other artefacts
5. "20 minutes a day" and other interesting techniques
6. Sounds of your life
7. Tastes and textures that made a difference to you

Who should take this course?

Anyone who is interested in writing memoirs; older people who want to collect stories of their family and early life; people who want to review patterns and themes in their life so far; anyone keen to improve their writing skills.

You will need

As well as access to a computer, you may find access to a scanner and a digital camera useful, but not necessary. It is also a help if you are able to develop a web-page if you wish to work on an online memoir.

Entry Requirements

There are no formal entry requirements for this course, but you will need a basic level of literacy.

How long is this course?

About 30 hours, and we suggest you set aside about 4 hours a week - but it's up to you. You will have tutor support for 4 months. You will have access to your course for a year.

Your tutor

Your tutor for this course is Joanna Howard. You can find out more about her on the Tutors page.

Further information

Click here to download a leaflet. (PDF format)

Do you have any further questions? Visit our Contact Us page and ask away.