Whether you’ve inherited boxes of letters, photos, and artifacts, or only a few stories passed down to you, this multi-genre workshop provides tools for shaping the raw material of family history into artful literary works. Drawing on her experience publishing poems, essays, and memoirs rooted in family and ancestral history, Rebecca will introduce basic principles and techniques, discuss several model texts, and suggest ways to proceed with new drafts or revisions. You are encouraged (though not required) to bring to class a photo, object, letter, document, or a brief drafted related to family history.

Rebecca McClanahan’s eleventh book, In the Key of New York City: A Memoir in Essays, appeared from Red Hen Press in fall 2020. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, Georgia Review, Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, Brevity, The Sun, River Teeth, and in anthologies published by Simon & Schuster, Beacon, Norton, and Bedford/St. Martin, among others. Recipient of two Pushcart prizes, the Glasgow Award in Nonfiction, the Wood Prize from Poetry Magazine, (twice) the Carter Prize for the Essay, and the N.C. Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education, she teaches in the MFA programs of Rainier Writing Workshop and Queens University. She can be reached at www.RebeccaMcClanahanWriter.com.