Alan Close – Fiction or Memoir, Writing a Story from Your Own Life

Alan’s lifewriting workshop, Fiction or Memoir? Writing A Story From Your Own Life, is on 15 March 2014.

Presenter: ALAN CLOSE

Topic: Fiction or Memoir? Writing A Story From Your Own Life

Time: 9.15 am to 4.00 pm

Date: Saturday 15 March 2014

Place: St John’s Anglican Church Hall, 14 Park Avenue, Burleigh Heads

Cost: $95 which will include morning and afternoon tea

Book:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/alan-close-fiction-or-memoir-writing-a-story-from-your-own-life-workshop-tickets-9430393561

‘Art is a lie with which we tell the truth.’ Picasso Finding the best way to tell stories from our own lives can be the hardest part of writing them – ‘the truth’ of our lives is inevitably elusive and contradictory. Many questions confront us. How can we write honestly about our lives without hurting those closest to us? Can we get around this by writing the story as ‘fiction’? Is it really ‘the truth’ if we call it ‘fiction’? What is ‘truth’ anyway? How do I know my version of events is ‘true’? (‘No-one lies like an eye-witness’, the Russians will tell you.) What is the difference between the ‘truth’ and the ‘facts’? Will ‘what really happened’ make a good enough story? Or, for that matter, what’s the point of letting ‘the facts’ get in the way of a perfectly good story?

Such questions are at the heart of every life-writer’s journey. Based around practical writing exercises and constructive feedback in a supportive environment, this workshop will help you find the story you really need to tell and the best way to tell it.

What we will do in the workshop:

• Discuss the difference between fiction and memoir, with examples.
• Explore the nature of ‘truth’ and the difference between ‘facts’ and ‘truth’.
• Learn the principles of freewriting, with writing exercises.
• Discuss point of view, with writing exercises.
• Explore the concepts of ‘the story I really need to tell’ and ‘the questions I’m trying to answer’, with writing exercises.
• Share pieces of writing in small groups.
• Explore the concept of a ‘story map’, with each participant to do their own.
• Discuss writing scenes and action, with participants completing exercises from their own story.

Intended participants Writers of all levels interested in life writing.

Over a thirty-year career, Alan Close has published poetry, fiction, memoir and creative non-fiction. He has also been widely published in the national print media, particularly in the field of men and relationships. He was a columnist on men’s issues in Good Weekend magazine and edited the anthology Men Love Sex, a collection of stories by men about love, sex and relationships. His most recent book is Before You Met Me: A Memoir Of One Man’s Troubled Search For Love.

Alan has a MA in in Creative Non-Fiction from QUT and has taught Creative Writing at QUT and SCU. He is a mentor with both the Australian Society of Authors and the Northern Rivers Writers Centre and has worked as an editor and manuscript assessor for many years. With his partner Sarah Armstrong he now runs an online service editing and assessing manuscripts and teaching and mentoring writers both face to face and online.

His website is alanclose.com

Contact:

Kathy at kathystewart640@gmail.com or 0415536546