Writing Your Memoir Workshop with Concha Alborg

Writing Your Memoir Workshop

March 4, 18, April 1, 15

10am-11:30am

In this four-session workshop we will develop techniques for writing your memoir. Whether your project deals with a family story, a personal narrative, a food, travel or literary memoir, our point of departure will focus on good writing practices. Among the elements to be considered will be: point of view, dialog, structure and themes, paying special attention to the context of your story.

Alison Bechdel, the author of Fun Home and Are You My Mother?, The New York Times best seller graphic memoir says that the writer outmost responsibility when writing a memoir is to “serve her story, not, you may note, to serve her family, or to serve the truth, but to serve the story.” Keeping this in mind, we will explore what each writer considers to be their true story.

Be prepared to write in and out of class, share your work and critique each other’s work. Keeping a journal is encouraged.

About Concha Alborg:

Concha earned a Masters from Emory University and a Ph.D. from Temple University. For over twenty years she was a Professor of Contemporary Spanish literature at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

In addition to numerous academic publications she has written works of fiction and creative non-fiction. She has published two memoirs: My Mother, That Stranger. Letters from the Spanish Civil War (2019) and Divorce after Death. A Widow’s Memoir (2014); a novel, American in Translation: A Novel in Three Novellas (2011) and two collections of short stories: Beyond Jet-Lag. Other Stories (2000) and Una noche en casa (1995). She also wrote cultural columns and reviews for The Broad Street Review and Al Día.

Concha led a Writers’ Group at The Athenaeum of Philadelphia from 2015-2018 and serves on the board of Philadelphia Stories.

More information on her career and publications at: www.conchaalborg.com