How might narratives from history, literature, or the natural world complement the telling of our own personal life stories? And how do you balance pivoting between interior and exterior landscapes without losing the reader?

In this 90-minute craft workshop, Erica Berry—author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear (Flatiron, 2023) and of researched personal essays for The New York Times, The Guardian, Outside, Orion, The Yale Review, among other publications—will share creative techniques and structural advice for navigating this buzzy genre, commonly referred to as “memoir-plus” in the publishing industry. 

From discussing what makes a successful ‘braid,’ to plotting out the writing process with these more experimental narrative structures, this interactive class will include analysis of short readings as well as shared (and take-home) generative prompts.